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Keep the discussion civil, please. |
On November 30 2011 10:01 Kharnage wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2011 09:56 Jerglings wrote:
Huk says casters are overpaid and treated better than players, eh?
So what about that whole life changing money we kept hearing about when he went to EG? What about how in every interview he talks about how he's babied so he can completely focus on the game? Grass is greener on the other side I guess. If you're a player, you should be focusing on how to win. Not worrying about who's casting and who isn't.
Unless this whole SC2 as an eSport is a total farce and is all about the money instead of being the best. I think huk is talking about "players" not just himself. It's possible to do things like that. You don't have to set your own house on fire before you're allowed to help your neighbour with their burning home.
The problem with that is what I see a lot of on TL. People want the SC2 scene to be what the BW scene became after years of development and growth. SC2 has only been out for a little less than a year and a half. Teams, especially foreign, won't be able to support their players for a long time. Remember that team incomes are separate from casters, which are employed by tournaments. It's much easier for a big name tournament to throw money at casters to bring in viewership for a couple of days than it is for a team to support a player for an extended period of time when the game is so new.
But like I was saying. If money matters so much to the players, then they need to play harder. HuK got his money through sacrifice, dedication, and hard work over in Korea. If players want that kind of money now, then they need to start playing on that level.
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I can't help but feel like this is a topic that doesn't need to be discussed, thank slasher for bringing up another pointless topic. We are no where near where BW is and even further from how actual sports are handled. But in all cases the best analyst casters were once pro players and the only reason they got into casting was because while they were still a pro they had an opportunity to it try out. Can't blame people for wanting money and you can't blame the organizations who give guaranteed paychecks to casters because they are guaranteed going to be putting in more hours than the players. There is a reason why artosis/tasteless want to play this game professionally but physically can't because casting is extremely demanding and you are actually devoting more time in game (excluding practice time of course!) then the players.
I'm always impressed by how much of a marathon these casters go through at MLG and DH and it's not surprising that they get paid more, end of story.
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As i posted on my twitter:
I often wonder if Slasher is making these kinds of ignorant statements because he means them or just to get reaction from the community. Any publicity is good publicity and all that.
On topic: I feel that the viewer community is siding with the players on this one, as they should.
We should all remember that all of our top casters today got to that position by being top-tier players in their own rights.
Denying players from doing this is basically bad for everyone that loves the gameplay.
No one can ever deny that good players are more knowledgeable about mechanics, strategies, etc.
He did make a good point that not every player is suited as a caster, since that requires a certain degree of
performance and narrative skill. But denying players the 'right' to cast simple because they are players and should therefore "stick to playing starcraft and but out" is retarded.
I feel this is either a silly cry for attention or an attempt of lesser-skilled casters to secure their position.
The latter might be true as I've noticed an increasing amount of demand by the community for so-called 'analytic casters'.
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At some point in the future, most casters(if not all) will have been high level pros in SC2. That really wont happen until we start to get people retiring from this generation of gamers. If we are talking about casters in there here and now I highly doubt that you will see "gamer/casters" at all.
The time commitment to be a caster at a high level is huge. Its actually not that easy to cast games, although some people think it is. Being engaging to your audience for just several hours is hard enough, but to do it on a daily/weekly biases for sometimes up to 8-10+ hours on air at a time I cant even imagine. What a lot of people on TL forget I think is that the target demographic for these companies(such as MLG) do not care if the casters make some mistakes they probably don't even notice them if they are not major. What they want is good camera control, exciting play by play and entertaining commentary.
Right now casters are the face of esports, and I think Sundance of MLG talks a lot about it in his TL interview. Players need to learn how to interact with fans, and be characters. If you want to show companies like MLG that you(as a pro gamer) can cast, you actually have to give them something to look at. Why would they ever just let pros get up on stage at their major events as some people here are suggesting, most players are horrible with their fan interactions and are totally uninteresting when talking.
If a pro puts the time in, and shows he is a great caster of course they are going to get picked up by the major events. I see no one doubting that, what I don't see is any pro that has done that yet(and is still a programmer).
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TBH most players can't bring in the viewer numbers that the prominent casters can. There are exceptions, of course, but the casters (may?) get paid better because they're simply worth more to the sponsors/organizers/whoever. The future of casting will probably lie with retired pros, but only a few of them will be able to make the transition. Watch the player interviews from any major tournament, and it will become painfully obvious that most players are NOT casting material.
I don't think its feasible for full-time players to succeed at tournaments and also do casting. They both require a ton of time, if different skill-sets.
As an aside, regarding the relative lack of separation between casters, pros, and the community, one of my favorite things about SC2 is how much closer I feel (as a fan) to the pros and the casters. I don't think I'm alone, either. Pros who stream more and interact more with their fans seem to reap vastly larger viewer numbers. Being able to come home from work, crack a beer, and tune in to a caster or pro gamer's stream is just something that has no parallel in any other "sport."
That casualness does have some downsides, though. Often I'll be watching a tournament only to see a player, or worse, a caster let slip some manner of profanity or engage in some other unprofessional behavior. Part of me thinks "no big deal, kinda funny." Then I remember the stream is live for more than 40,000 people with who knows how many attending at the venue.
This can't just be us nerds chilling in our living rooms laughing at off-color jokes any more. "eSports" is fragile; it has a ton of potential, but if we want it to continue to grow, if we want it to be taken seriously, we'll need to grow up some. That means fans as well as players and casters.
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On November 30 2011 09:52 robopork wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2011 09:41 Lore-Fighting wrote:
I actually don't think players know more about the game than casters. I feel that is a common misconception. Casters see thousands of games from a top-down perspective. Players have only their limited experience. I think just the inverse of that is true. In order to be a good player, you not only have to watch a ton of games from the top down perspective, but you have to watch them with huge personal interest. For casters, stating the concepts and problems is enough. For players, understanding the concepts and solving the problems means they keep their job. Players watch tons of replays with no energy spent on how their talking about the game will provide entertainment for a crowd, it is purely studious. Players will have first hand experience on the possibilities, limitations, and nuances in all circumstances- the caster's perspective is limited to top down, the player has extensive experience with both.
Players only care about their race... I wonder how HuK would cast a ZvT. See a player such as Rotterdam, he is an amazing protoss behind his famous casting skills, but he is obviously better when there is a protoss playing (or a zerg, he has an amazing zerg play) while Day9 is a master league level in every race. So of course he is not gona be as good as HuK in a 1v1, but he can cast and understand every game, take the angle of every possible players, and still share a huge number of things to us viewers.
Also, there are caster such as DjWheat that don't need any knowledge to be awesome, he just needs to talk and it's done, the game is enjoyable (I'm not saying wheat has no knowledge, just that he doesn't need it since he is so awesome, just like tasteless).
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If you are good at what you do then you have no need to be worried.
However, Chris is right on this one and I've already said it many times over. In many cases the best analysis will come from the actual players themselves. If they have good communication skills then they're exceptional.
We saw it in Home Story Cup and a few other major LAN tournaments. If you want to learn something and get inside the players heads then these guys will deliver the goods. That's why I always look forward to those events because I know what is said will be top notch and also give you their perspective.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I don't really agree with Huk. I understand what he's saying... But, Players usually only play one race so it leads to a lot of bias in casting and say for example Huk was commentating with Tasteless for example, Tasteless being the play by play guy and Huk analysing it, unlike for example when Artosis who knows a lot about all the races would be able to explain things from both sides, Huk would only be able to do it from the side of the Protoss which isn't really insightful to users. Huk has his knowledge of other races by playing against them, but in eSports, unlike real sports I don't think ex players of SC2 need to be casters (right now). I mean the majority of casters now played Broodwar or some other RTS.
I would easily say Apollo is one of the best casters there is and he never really played Broodwar. Admittedly he coaches a team, same goes for Artosis. The other one who is a fantastic caster is Day9. He's made his living now by analysing games on various livestreaming services for the good of the community and apparently he has masters accounts on all races. Now I'm probably going to sound biased here, but just because he doesn't play at the pro-level, but he knows more than the majority of players IMO. He's viewed games from a top down perspective for a long time and can see exactly what both players are doing, players cannot. He knows a hell of a lot, he may not just execute it as well as some players.
Heck, even look at DJWheat, he's in Diamond or Masters, but he makes games incredibly fun to watch as he brings energy to the casting. I'm sure if there were players who were articulate/not camera shy enough they would cast, but as we saw at the GSL with Jason Lee and Idra. Idra may be knowledgable about Zerg, but his casting is very dry and boring as he didn't really know how to do it as well as the casters we have on the scene right now.
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tldr, slasher spews more ignorant crap.
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In American Football, the casters are usually ex-pros. And they are usually payed more and better liked than current players.
It's just the way the world works.
edit: that being said, I prefer Husky's casting to anyone else, so I don't think that casters need necessarily be ex-pros.
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Why do people even care about Slasher's opinion?
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On November 30 2011 11:16 Zidane wrote:
Why do people even care about Slasher's opinion?
Why do people insist on distorting his opinion is the better question?
Honestly i sometimes wonder...
Does anyone else find it strange we are even having this discussion? Obviously the best case would be a combination of a former pro and a "host" of some kind (the role Tasteless fills in the GSL, basically the guy who talks a lot to fill in the empty seconds where nothing interesting is happening). No one disagrees with that. But being a pro gamer (or a former pro gamer) doesn't necessarily make you a brilliant caster. You need to be able to speak well in public and to express your thoughts in such a way that everyone understands you (including those who are not high masters) to make the cast interesting. That is the area where many current pro gamers have serious problems.
And yes, i watched the Homestory cup, but frankly aside from their comedic value many of the Pros casting were not doing a very good job. Some of them completly failed at observing the minimap while casting, something they probably do by reflex when playing.
I'd probably agree immediatly that any successfull player could become a great caster once he stopped playing, because at that point he could invest the hours needed into becoming a good one.
And yes, Slasher would probably agree with you that some casters currently aren't quite where they should be, but who else is there? It's not as if successfull retired SC2 progamers are around yet.... Hell there aren't that many retired SCBW pros in the western scene, and those that are still left are already casting.
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Just sorry for all of the unneeded drama this early into SC2. >.>
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I have a few thoughts on this.
First, several years from now, Huk's point about analytical casters will probably stand. Right now, I'm not really inclined to trust top players just because they're top players, given that results often come and go by means which do not really illustrate in-depth knowledge and expertise in the game (which arguably nobody has in SC2 yet anyway).
Second, analytical mindset and the ability to express one's knowledge of the game aren't skills that all players necessarily have. Even at the highest level of play. Much in the same way that not every passionate hardcore gamer can be a game designer. When Bisu was asked why his PvZ was so good in an interview, he actually couldn't articulate an answer, he couldn't explain it. However, if you ask somebody like Tyler or Day9 why Bisu's PvZ is so good, they might actually be able to give you a better answer than the man himself.
Third, and this is a very personal opinion - I feel like the importance of analysis is way overstated on TL. For me the casters are "only" there to provide additional entertainment to the game, and I feel the same way when I listen to Artosis and TLO as when I listen to TB and Khaldor casting. I can't imagine anyone serious about improving in SC2 actually learning the game by listening to an analytical caster do on-the-fly analysis during a game. All of these analysis are flawed because it's impossible to perfectly read the game without watching over a VOD/replay several times to understand it entirely. All of these casters make mistakes all the time, and I can't see players doing it all that much better anyway.
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My head just exploded.. Did huk (highest paid sc2 player from my knowledge) just say that players need to be paid more ? Casters are paid far less than him... Including Artosis and tasteless....
Brain.. explosion.
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On November 30 2011 11:51 FXOpen wrote:
My head just exploded.. Did huk (highest paid sc2 player from my knowledge) just say that players need to be paid more ? Casters are paid far less than him... Including Artosis and tasteless....
Brain.. explosion.
Quite frankly Huk's statements about caster pay are extremely asinine.
Sundance had it EXACTLY right in his TL interview when he said that basically, the casters are the viewer's portal into the match, and that, due to their sheer amount of time in front of the audience (online especially) they are arguably the most important part of any presentation, and they should be paid accordingly. I have absolutely no problem with the caster pay. Player pay should and will rise, but as eSports is an emerging market promoting and cultivating the best presentation possible is what is important right now. Like it or not.
Those that are saying Slasher is worrying about his job need to wise up as well, at this point he is a journalist, not a caster, and looking at professional sports in the US there is nothing to indicate that the player-> journalist transition is something that will ever happen.
Has anyone ever stopped to consider that Slasher would just like eSports to reach a point where players do not have enough time to put into casting else they lose their competitive edge, and vice versa? If John Gruden is out of a job, then certainly, being a commentator for Monday Night Football is a great gig, however when he get's hired to a new team he will not have time to keep up quality coaching and commentating, so he will chose.
That is Slasher's point. Everyone chill.
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9070 Posts
I would love to hear more Hasuobs casting, ToD as well, they were the highlight for me at the HSC
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On November 30 2011 11:51 FXOpen wrote:
My head just exploded.. Did huk (highest paid sc2 player from my knowledge) just say that players need to be paid more ? Casters are paid far less than him... Including Artosis and tasteless....
Brain.. explosion.
How much is HuK paid?
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On November 30 2011 11:51 FXOpen wrote:
My head just exploded.. Did huk (highest paid sc2 player from my knowledge) just say that players need to be paid more ? Casters are paid far less than him... Including Artosis and tasteless....
Brain.. explosion.
Because comparing casters to the highest paid player is a fair comparison?
MY head just exploded.
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EPT
