This has been brought up before, I know... but these are my personal thoughts and views and its not meant to be a rant or prejudice/discriminatory against anyone. But I feel I need to bring a healthy discussion on this.
As Tastetosis says all the time "nerds". Thats right, nerd is a term that the SC2 community has taken upon themselves, not as a derogtory name, but almost as a proud badge that means intelligent, focused, determined, and not ashamed of what they are passionate about. Almost like the "nerds" have earned respect in the world. As Day9 says, nerd was a term used in the past to make fun of people who are socially inept and to belittle people, but times have changed and those nerds have grown up and are now powerful, rich, and influential people in society and the word "nerd" means something else.
However, the SC2 community is a bit ahead of the rest of the world in this aspect. Nerds are no longer hated, but misunderstood. THE SAME STEREOTYPES STILL EXIST, they are just not at the forefront of people's minds. Now I grew up a jock, I play hockey and own a business teaching and running hockey camps all over the US. This forces me to interact with people who the SC2 community might refer to as "stereotypical jocks". While tolerant of us, they still have a deep down view that "nerds" are people with undeveloped social skills, bad with women (mostly virgins), physically weak and pale skinned, strange or awkward in conversation... need I go on? This is a REAL VIEW people have and we unjustly get categorized like this... or do we force ourselves into these categories.
Barcraft is a great thing, I love it. My friend sets it up for MLG viewings at a local bar/restaurant, actually in the same rink where I play my hockey games. This is relevent because MLG is trying to make Esports big and reaching out to new markets, even talks with ESPN. One day, SC2 could be on at Bars all over the US inside hockey rinks and football stadiums. However, this leads to a problem with SC2 casters. Sports casters are professionals in their field, great voices, knowledgable about the sports, and most have sports broadcasting degrees or have played the sports professionally (some Hall of Fame-rs). Why is it different for SC2?
WHY IS SC2 CASTING A CLIQUE? People say it all the time, its hard to make it as a SC2 caster. I have 2 close friends that both tried to make it as casters and both were unsuccessful. They started casting in late beta, both great knowledge, entertaining, well spoken, and professional voices (althought I might be biased). People have said that SC2 casting, people almost WORK to keep you out of it, or only an elite few can make it in. However, almost every stream I go into, people are hating on SC2 casters. I can't even join the GSL chat channels without hearing people complain about the casting. IT'S SO COMMON, ITS AN AUTO-BAN in most chat channels. Think about that?! But are they justified?
To quote Aris, a top fighting game player who is renown as the best Tekken caster and attended several US and overseas tournaments placing in every MLG for tekken he attended, he said "It seems when people get that keyboard and mouse in their hands their IQ just DROPS." Its true, but thats the internet. However the comments about the casters are mostly related lack of game knowledge or their overpowering accents. Several english speaking SC2 casters have very strong accents, sometimes hard to understand them, and it is NOT made up for by a professional SC2 gaming history or incredible game knowledge... I don't know how they got the job aside from maybe convenience or maybe because they cast a different tournament and now they are inside the clique. Clique is a bad word if you didn't notice. A wise person said "You can always learn from negative feedback, no matter how unjustified it is or how rediculous their claims are... there is always some truth in it that you can use to improve upon." I think we need to start listening to these complaints and take action. Allow new people to prove themselves, thus giving us a larger pool of commentators to pull from, thus giving us the BEST commentators we can find.
To finalize the point lets do a comparison of Day9 and KellyMilkies. Why is Day9 SOOOOO well respected? He played BW and was, at a time, the top player in the US. He is VERY knowledgable about SC2 in almost EVERY aspect. He is arguably the hardest working person in all of SC2 in terms of building his knowledge, improving his casting, taking it upon himself to become the frontman for making esports big. I have to respect that, and its clear its not to make a name for himself or to make money, I'm sure he'd do it for free... oh wait he does. So I ask you, how did Day9 become a caster? By working hard, being professional, being knowledgable and doing tons of PR.
Now, it may not seem fair to her, but lets look at KellyMilkies. The complaints I've heard about her are such as her accent and problems enunciating the english language, her lack of game knowledge, and voice tonality or being somewhat monotone. All 3 of those are imperitive to being a caster, so how DID she become a caster? I don't know, it must have something to do with her being a female. I think thats why so many people were offended by her. When I see her casting a major event, all I think of are the negative stereotypes of "nerds" and how "OMG A GURL, YOU'VE GOT THE JOB!!!" must have ran through someone's mind. Nerds are bad with women right? I know this is very harsh, but I'm not the only person thinking it. I appologize to Kelly for singling her out, anybody would have taken the job, she wasn't the one doing the hiring.
So if Esports is ever going to be popular, people are going to have to take it seriously. Thus we need to put our best foot forward. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO BE CLIQUEY. Has anyone thought of taking a professional sports broadcaster and teaching them SC2? Most of the people casting sports don't actually play the game, they learn the players names and study the sport. Imagine having a well spoken individual with a great, powerful speaking voice (similar to radio sports casting), doing the play by play of SC2 and having an intelligent, high level player like Day9 or Artosis, doing the color commentary. With our current infrastructure, that will never happen.
SC2 casters should not be simply members of an elite clique that is hard to break into, they should not get the job simply because they are convenient (as in casted before) or female. They need to be the best individuals at SPEAKING for play by play and have the BEST KNOWLEDGE for color commentary. This is the formula ESPN, Versus, Fox Sports and so many others use.
Imagine having a SC2 game with a play by play as good as this:
Then also having Artosis casting and talking about the latest build orders, the matchup and meta game, and the strategies the players might be attempting.
Thanks for reading this, let me know your thoughts everyone. Do you agree or not?
For the first two para's the thought running through my mind was: "I hope he actually means clique and not cliche"... then you stated yourself clearly and I understood your point. I do agree, but such is life. Look at your professional TV examples... theres a few out there that just plain suck. Period. How did they get into that clique?
I agree. There are a lot of people casting who don't really deserve to be simply because they got respected by the community in some way. I don't think it's really unique to casting though it's true in all aspects of life. The people you know are far more important than your skill/work ethic/anything else.
The Sc2 casting scene does seem a little clique, but at the same time it's not necessarily unwarranted or bad thing. Look at CatzPajamas, he's the perfect example of your "play by play" average guy who made it as a caster. I'm sorry that your two friends couldn't really break through in the way they wanted but the barrier to entry is fairly high as the market is becoming over saturated with many low quality casters. There's some diamonds in the rough that have a decent following but only so many casters can be on the Day9/Tasteosis/Bitterdam/TB-Apollo level.
You will reach a natural barrier of how many casters people will actually wish to hear/see.
I don't see much room for more casters. Maybe if you have something exceptional you can try and compete - but Tastosis I think we can all agree deserves a spot for as long as they'll want to cast, right? And Day9 ofc... And those 3 guys know JP, who knows [insert name] who knows [insert name] etc etc...
I think Khaldor is one of the few I never had heard of (before Copenhagen Games) who just took it upon himself to cast like a madman - get into good tournaments and eventually actually go to Korea.
It's tough out there if you don't know the right people. I don't think it's impossible though. But you would have to work unreasonably hard. It's an "established marked" where you'd have a hard time breaking in. You should do your own thing.
I'm not sure I'd agree in saying there is a clique within the casting profession I think it's more to do with fans grouping casters by popularity and long term relationships between casters. Saying there's a clique suggests there's resistance to new casters from the existing established casters themselves. I haven't heard of any shunning going on between casters, maybe just the odd personal dislike between a couple but not actively restricting anyone new coming in and giving it a go.
The barriers come from factors like there's only so many tournaments to go around between casters and a limited audience who also enjoy watching the players stream themselves. Maybe newer casters could contact players themselves and ask to cast their custom game sessions? Could be a new way to get your name out there.
It is clichéd but I think it really is a case of just doing it as much as possible, contacting smaller tournaments (or GOM who seem to let anyone have a go ) and just keeping at it and hoping for a break and a chance in front of a large audience.
I think it's interesting you talk about Barcrafts though, it seems as though the thing that could now be holding SC2 events back in front of new spectators or people new to the game is not the game itself but the casters being broadcast into the bars. I think that's great and shows how far SC2 has come already. We're not embarrassed or concerned to be seen watching a computer game in public but the actual commentators talking about it who often reinforce the stereotype we're overcoming by having Barcrafts in the first place! Maybe you didn't mean that and I read too much into it but I think it's great anyway
The roles of professional sports casters and starcraft 2 casters aren't interchangeable. Starcraft 2 casters have to fill a LOT of downtime and that is where personality and humor become crucial. A lot of the success of the current casting vanguard comes not just from their play-by-play or analytical skills, but from their ability to keep viewers engaged and entertained between games.
Being a caster involves a lot of work, more than most people realize. There's still the assumption amongst many that casters don't have to put in a lot of effort, which might be correct for a few but not as a general rule. If you want to be a successfull caster you have to put your name out there. The StarCraft 2 infrastructure that we have allows you to do it on a daily basis as there are tons of tournaments one can cast. But one has to make an effort to do so.
In the end it is the community that decides whether they like you or not. There are a lot of casters that might have all the tools you need in order to be good, but they lack "personality" and therefore are perceived as mediocre. I'm not saying this is fair but it is how the scene works in my opinion. But if you work hard and don't hesitate to put in time and effort you will get better over time and people will start to take note of you.
Although I have been casting WarCraft III for ages I did not start casting in english until roughly a year ago (Assembly Winter). Nobody in the international community (well, at least most) had never heard of my name before in regards to StarCraft 2 Casting. Now I have the great pleasure to be one of the casters for GomTV. So it is possible to establish yourself within the casting community. At least thats my opinion.
The barrier of entry for regular sportscasting is also pretty selective, it happens. Not everyone can be famous.
I work more hours/day on E-Sports stuff than I do my day job, and most people have no idea who I am. That's just the way stuff is.
Look at Orb from the Korean Weekly? He casts more than most (I would say all, but Khaldor is a bald, german StarCraft superman) on a regular basis, and a large portion of the community had no idea who he was until he got to work with NASL.
EDIT: Haha, ninja'd by the german superhero himself.
We are reclaiming the words Nerd and Geek in he same way liberated black people have reclaimed the word Nigger. I know our example is less extreme of course but it is a similar concept.
STOP capsloking RANDOM words and SENTENCES in your post, it looks horrible. Usesome of these please, if you want to underline something.
As for the content, it's most definitely not an elite clique, there are at least a hundred casters, some of them came out of nowhere with no background, probably most of them dont know more then half of the rest
Take an example, Mr.Bitter, he just made a show about himself learning from pro coaches, and a few months later he's one of ESL's main caster. There's no tribute to be paid if u wanna become a caster, u just start out, if u're good u'll have viwers, if you have viwers tourneys or small cups at least gonna pick you up.
On February 02 2012 18:26 vtbarrera wrote: The Sc2 casting scene does seem a little clique, but at the same time it's not necessarily unwarranted or bad thing. Look at CatzPajamas, he's the perfect example of your "play by play" average guy who made it as a caster. I'm sorry that your two friends couldn't really break through in the way they wanted but the barrier to entry is fairly high as the market is becoming over saturated with many low quality casters. There's some diamonds in the rough that have a decent following but only so many casters can be on the Day9/Tasteosis/Bitterdam/TB-Apollo level.
To be fair, pretty much anyone can be on "Bitterdam's" level because they are... not very good. Might be they'd do a better work with more work put in but overall they are way below the other combos you mentioned.
They constantly bicker with each other, they find one kinda-funny-joke and run with that for the rest of the tournament (MMA's jacket during IEM Kiev for example) which makes the joke not very funny. Their analysis isn't very top level either so I, personally, don't see their appeal at all.
They get to cast a lot, however, so I guess I am a clear minority in this or it's like the OP says; more convenient to hire somewhat known and popular casters than making a gamble on casters that might be a lot better.
On February 02 2012 18:26 vtbarrera wrote: The Sc2 casting scene does seem a little clique, but at the same time it's not necessarily unwarranted or bad thing. Look at CatzPajamas, he's the perfect example of your "play by play" average guy who made it as a caster. I'm sorry that your two friends couldn't really break through in the way they wanted but the barrier to entry is fairly high as the market is becoming over saturated with many low quality casters. There's some diamonds in the rough that have a decent following but only so many casters can be on the Day9/Tasteosis/Bitterdam/TB-Apollo level.
To be fair, pretty much anyone can be on "Bitterdam's" level because they are... not very good. Might be they'd do a better work with more work put in but overall they are way below the other combos you mentioned.
They constantly bicker with each other, they find one kinda-funny-joke and run with that for the rest of the tournament (MMA's jacket during IEM Kiev for example) which makes the joke not very funny. Their analysis isn't very top level either so I, personally, don't see their appeal at all.
They get to cast a lot, however, so I guess I am a clear minority in this or it's like the OP says; more convenient to hire somewhat known and popular casters than making a gamble on casters that might be a lot better.
Bitter+Rotterdam is an amazing combo for several reasons. One they are 2 community people, the veteran W3 caster and the guy who made it from doing his own show from scratch, a European and an American. Two, they look very good. I know, who cares, it's esports not beauty contest, well believe me lot of people care. Three, they both actually are GM level players, unlike pretty much any combo you can name. Their game knowledge is satisfying so is their analysis. And idk how "constantly bicker" with each other is a bad quality, it makes their co-cast seem natural to me.
About their humor, you can dislike it, who am i to disagree with that, but i like it, and many others do, so np there either.
On February 02 2012 18:26 vtbarrera wrote: The Sc2 casting scene does seem a little clique, but at the same time it's not necessarily unwarranted or bad thing. Look at CatzPajamas, he's the perfect example of your "play by play" average guy who made it as a caster. I'm sorry that your two friends couldn't really break through in the way they wanted but the barrier to entry is fairly high as the market is becoming over saturated with many low quality casters. There's some diamonds in the rough that have a decent following but only so many casters can be on the Day9/Tasteosis/Bitterdam/TB-Apollo level.
To be fair, pretty much anyone can be on "Bitterdam's" level because they are... not very good. Might be they'd do a better work with more work put in but overall they are way below the other combos you mentioned.
They constantly bicker with each other, they find one kinda-funny-joke and run with that for the rest of the tournament (MMA's jacket during IEM Kiev for example) which makes the joke not very funny. Their analysis isn't very top level either so I, personally, don't see their appeal at all.
They get to cast a lot, however, so I guess I am a clear minority in this or it's like the OP says; more convenient to hire somewhat known and popular casters than making a gamble on casters that might be a lot better.
Lol.. I personally think Bitterdam is about the nicest thing that can happen to any event, on the other side Day9 and most of all DJWheat makes me switch the stream asap. That does not make them bad casters.... Tastes are diffrent.
EPT
) and just keeping at it and hoping for a break and a chance in front of a large audience.
