EPTClouD's World #1 - Caster/Player situation - Page 18
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Amlitzer
United States471 Posts
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Ender2701
United States581 Posts
The way you advance yourself in the world is with people skills, getting to know people, making connections, going to dinners, helping others out. It's not just starcraft, it's business in general. There's essentially no one who ever makes an incredibly good living by just being good at something. You can be the smartest person in the world, but unless you have the ability to convince people to work on your project or give you funding, it doesn't matter. Frankly, it's far easier to just play starcraft or program and just focus on being really good at that than it is to market yourself and make connections. No one cares how hard you work on something, they care about what you produce. If a player like Cloud wants to become more successful money-wise, he has to market himself and become someone like TLO with a fanbase, and there's nothing stopping him from doing that. I also agree with all of what Hot_bid posted as well. | ||
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Prog
United Kingdom1470 Posts
On May 02 2012 09:40 Hot_Bid wrote: [...] The problem is Cloud somehow sees this work (at fan interaction, marketing) as illegitimate, whether you're a caster or a player. He doesn't see it as "deserved" recognition. But it is. Players work hard at it and it's a difficult process. If it was so easy then every player would be doing it, Cloud included. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking players choose not to get more fans, because it's simply not easy to put yourself out there and do all this popular marketing stuff about yourself every day. Players don't want to be bothered with this stuff. A lot of times they are lazy. They don't like to write blogs, make appearances, make videos, interact with fans all the time. Some simply just don't have the personality for it. [...] Either this is false or cloud does contradict himself in some sense by doing videoblogs. Because videoblogs are exactly that: fan interaction, marketing. And he does at least a decent job, otherwise this thread would not exist. | ||
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Disposition1989
Canada270 Posts
On May 02 2012 09:55 MVTaylor wrote: Glad Cloud came out and said it. As IdrA reinforced on Inside The Game tonight, top casters like Day[9] do make a stupid amount of money, and the fact he tries to pretend this isn't the case is really annoying. how is this annoying? id say its annoying for players to reveal stuff like this about the casters. no player salaries are ever revealed (as it should be), so why should the casters reveal theirs? should they apologise for SUCCEEDING? | ||
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MVTaylor
United Kingdom2893 Posts
On May 02 2012 10:11 Disposition1989 wrote: how is this annoying? id say its annoying for players to reveal stuff like this about the casters. no player salaries are ever revealed (as it should be), so why should the casters reveal theirs? should they apologise for SUCCEEDING? No, they just shouldn't pretend they're barely scrapping a living and doing it just to help people when they get paid more to cast a tournament than a player gets for winning it. (D9 got 40k for casting DH winter) | ||
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yeastiality
Canada374 Posts
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Sphaero
Germany1697 Posts
On May 02 2012 06:27 Talin wrote: You expect too much from western esports. Historically it's always been a joke, and there's no indication that will ever change - hell, even the people behind it hardly changed and now that they've started making money off of it... no way. "Esports" is a niche spin-off of the entertainment industry. Every exploitative business model and every trashy media stereotype we can see on television or in any other part of it applies here as well, and the more "popular" it becomes and the more people put money into it, the worse it will get. "Esports" is a niche spin-off of the entertainment industry. Every exploitative business model and every trashy media stereotype we can see on television or in any other part of it applies here as well, and the more "popular" it becomes and the more people put money into it, the worse it will get. Oh, these wonderful generalizations. Ever heard of people like Robert Ohlen or Cengiz Tüylü? No? Well, the first is the current CEO (since 2006) of the Dreamhack AB, the company that organizes the events with the same name. It started as a small lan of students and is now the worlds biggest gaming festival. One week ago they held a tournament, that had a atmosphere, which gave me and probably thousands of other people nerd chills. The second one is the founder and CEO of mousesports, a multi gaming organization, that became a cornerstone for professional gaming in Europe. It had and still has several powerful squads in different games, for example the best SC2 team of foreigners. Mouz is around for eleven years now and stands for professionalism and longevity. The personification of this ideology is HasuObs, the team captain of their SC 2 roster, who is with them since 2004 and with that probably the longest standing professional player under a western team. If the western esports industry is such a joke, how can those people (just two examples for a group of way more people) be around for so long? The esports industry is definitively a niche branch, but its far from being a joke and constantly growing. The reason for that is that professional gaming is getting slowly more acceptance by the publicity, because the people in charge in the coming years will be persons, who grew up with gaming and gaming in general becomes more casual. Positive articles in big papers or shows in national TV (Sweden, Germany) and the exploding attendance numbers of fairs like Gamescom are proof of that. The unfortunate thing is that the players, people who are actually genuinely passionate about and committed to the games they play, end up having the worst of it. But alas, to change it you'd have to change the whole western media culture, even culture in general. Players, who become top players can definitely make a living from gaming. They will be passionate players, who will be left in the dust. The hard truth is, that passion alone is not enough. Just like in other sports, they are many passionate people, who want to become professionals, but don´t make it in the long run, because they are not skilled enough. However, the same applies to team managers, organisations and also casters. If you have not enough skills or don´t work hard enough, you don´t make it. How many top casters do we have in the scene? People, who cast major events. Maybe ten or fifteen? The competition between them is just as hard as between players. IMO most of the most famous casters have earned their spot. The thing is, that game knowledge is just one factor, that can make a successful caster. Some casters shine in this regard, others have great charisma, a awesome voice or great humor, that can bind viewers. The best combine all these skills. Its true, that they are casters, who ride the hype right now, but normally those will disappear from the big stage sooner or later. The community more often than not rewards hard work and passion. People like Khaldor or Take are already highly regarded here, because they bring us so much entertainment. I'll bet anyone anything they want that 5 years from now the only SC2 we'll be watching is Korean leagues (IF it sticks there even), with a bit of amateur leagues on the side, and neither the foreign players nor the casters will be getting any money. Maybe. It could happen, that SC2 just like BW and WC3 will be replaced by a different RTS-game. The same happens right now in the MOBA-genre with HoN and Dota being replaced by Dota 2. In this case several players, organizations and casters will do something, what happened before in the esports industry. They will adapt and move on. Most of the famous personalities came from former games and mixed with new faces to create a new scene. It will still be esports, because esports is more than just one game. A different thinking is in my opinion ignorant and shortsighted. The other scenario would be what I call "the counterstrike-effect". A couple of years ago valve published the successor of CS 1.6: CS Source. It had better graphics and animation, but a lot of people in the scene deemed it as worse compared to 1.6. The result was, that the stars of the scene still played 1.6 and it stayed globally superior than Source. Right now, CS 1.6 is after 13 years (pretty much as long as SC 1) slowly fading away from the professional scene, but it had an impressive run. Nobody knows, what will happen. Only time will tell. | ||
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Ender2701
United States581 Posts
On May 02 2012 10:07 Prog wrote: Either this is false or cloud does contradict himself in some sense by doing videoblogs. Because videoblogs are exactly that: fan interaction, marketing. And he does at least a decent job, otherwise this thread would not exist. This is the second time I've heard of Cloud. The first time was when he was casting and was incredibly rude and kept interrupting the other players who were commentating which was quite annoying. He has done very little before this, and I don't think he understands very well how to market himself either based on this video. I haven't seen anyone in the industry come out and say they strongly agree with what Cloud said, and I've seen a number of people come out and say they strongly disagree. | ||
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colingrad
United States210 Posts
On May 02 2012 10:13 MVTaylor wrote: No, they just shouldn't pretend they're barely scrapping a living and doing it just to help people when they get paid more to cast a tournament than a player gets for winning it. (D9 got 40k for casting DH winter) sorry to sorta derail the thread here but whats your source for him getting 40k? and is that in USD, SEK or other? | ||
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Jono7272
United Kingdom6330 Posts
Look at sports commentators, football for example (soccer), the play by play commentator knows every player on the pitch and knows info about him. Why do our commentators not do the same (with some exceptions), most do zero preparation, just turn up and give a basic description of the game without much insight. It's all good that MLG/IPL/GSL are upping there production value, its all becoming more professional, except for the commentary. Tasteless doesn't even read the patch notes for god sake (mules on gold). If only I could understand Korean and watch the Korean GSL casts. Where they actually give a shit, know the players, know the game and have a real passion in their commentary. | ||
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StarVe
Germany13591 Posts
On May 02 2012 10:16 Ender2701 wrote: This is the second time I've heard of Cloud. The first time was when he was casting and was incredibly rude and kept interrupting the other players who were commentating which was quite annoying. He has done very little before this, and I don't think he understands very well how to market himself either based on this video. I haven't seen anyone in the industry come out and say they strongly agree with what Cloud said, and I've seen a number of people come out and say they strongly disagree. Like every player who commented on this (Darkforce, Naniwa, ToD, PredY, TT1, Harstem - IdrA and incontrol just made points similar to Cloud's on Inside the Game) has said he agrees with the core of what ClouD said and some have hinted that they know a lot of players who have similar opinions. Or ar those not people "in the industry"? | ||
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MVTaylor
United Kingdom2893 Posts
On May 02 2012 10:16 colingrad wrote: sorry to sorta derail the thread here but whats your source for him getting 40k? and is that in USD, SEK or other? Brain farted, was 40k for Tastosis and 20k for Day[9]. Incontrol post; http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=290205¤tpage=9#162 | ||
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askTeivospy
1525 Posts
there are a lot of casters I don't really care about, there are a lot of players I don't really care about (ie cloud is one of them). the casters and players I do care about idc how much money they make, as long as it keeps the game entertaining to watch then how is it any of my business how much money either makes O_O | ||
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yeastiality
Canada374 Posts
On May 02 2012 06:27 Talin wrote: "Esports" is a niche spin-off of the entertainment industry. Every exploitative business model and every trashy media stereotype we can see on television or in any other part of it applies here as well, and the more "popular" it becomes and the more people put money into it, the worse it will get. The unfortunate thing is that the players, people who are actually genuinely passionate about and committed to the games they play, end up having the worst of it. But alas, to change it you'd have to change the whole western media culture, even culture in general. This is an interesting perspective. It's pretty easy for me to see how it's somewhat of a culture clash. I'm not a really involved Brood War follower, but I can count on two hands the number of times I've seen Korean players do something "wacky" or risqué as a bid for attention in the 'entertainment industry' of esports. In western (especially north american) SC2, it seems like it's almost the opposite - people are confident in distancing themselves from "those guys who practice 12 hours a day" while they say childish things on stream, bandwagon people on twitter, sell t-shirts and any number of other things that aren't "playing Starcraft II". When's the last time you heard Nestea tell the audience how they can buy into his brand on twitter, facebook and youtube? He just goes on stage and kills nerds. Naniwa, a European, does his utmost to take on the 'Korean training style' and attitude (including apologizing for/reflecting on his 7 probe rush), and people say he's "a sociopath". It's like he's expected to behave differently because he's from a country that the prevailing culture says is "not as dedicated as Korea". I think ClouD picked a bit of a poor way to explain it, but I see where his mindset matches up with this. As a player who works hard, you want to see players who work hard get attention. More than that, you want to see players who work hard and do well get attention. You don't want to see anyone become a figurehead for SC2 when they can't tell you how many baneling hits kills a baneling, or admonish players for not buying adrenal glands when they have 30 zerglings and 118 gas. For some people, the simple practical relationships with SC2 are more important than "growing a brand" or "being a media personality" or whatever other phrase is hot this week. As a really bad player who watches a lot of tournaments, I'm absolutely sick to death of players who are happy with their only accomplishments being retweets and t-shirt sales. I won't name them because that would be rude! People like to rag on the fighting game community, but everything they're passionate about is related to players and how they play the game. Their "top casters" are knowledgeable about the games like Artosis, but they're not cult figures. They're "just casters." Any time a bit of fake emotion or contrived drama trickles into a fighting game stream, the audience in chat calls it 'esports' - this is the term they use to categorize the empty husk of the game that is created by the 'entertainment industry' approach. Check it out and be sure to research the backstory! | ||
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AirbladeOrange
United States2573 Posts
Skilled players like Cloud probably tend to want more in-depth analysis than the vast majority of people watching major tournaments. Grubby seems to be the kind of caster who can please a lot of different people. He is a great caster. I think part of the issue is that the game is still pretty new. As time goes on, people will have their voices heard and the most popular casters will get the jobs, even if it's people guys like Cloud don't particularly like. | ||
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NobledBlood
United States125 Posts
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Darkhorse
United States23455 Posts
Overall, I think that not all casting can be catered to the grandmaster or incredibly skilled players. Lower level players and just minor fans of the game want to watch as well, and such heavy insight into the game and over analysis is not condusive to their viewing experience. Sure, I would love to see some very intelligent player/casters (like Grubby) start casting more, but the commentary of someone more exciting (like Day9) is just plain BETTER for a lot of people that watch. | ||
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Alexstrasas
302 Posts
This reminds me of those situation were politician A has good ideias, but poitician B goes out on the streets shaking hands and kissing babies on the head, thus obviously politican B wins because he obviously cares more. Its not the job of players / casters to do marketing. Most of these "known" players/casters would never make it in the "real" word, only online with the backup of various places + Show Spoiler + full of edgy angst teens+ Show Spoiler + reddits and so on | ||
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StarVe
Germany13591 Posts
On May 02 2012 10:32 NobledBlood wrote: When Cloud is GM in all three races, then I'll listen to something he has to say. More so when he calls out someone who IS GM in all three, and provides the most dumbed down and high level analysis of any caster. Do you actually believe Day[9] is GM with all three races at the moment or is this a joke? | ||
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yeastiality
Canada374 Posts
On May 02 2012 10:43 StarVe wrote: Do you actually believe Day[9] is GM with all three races at the moment or is this a joke? He said he is so it must be true. | ||
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