EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aVYUN.jpg)
As some of you may recall, I come from the distant land of Cadred. When interviewing people, I try to take a very unique aspect and think outside of the box when writing and asking questions as I find many interviews to be boring. Very few really get to the level where the reader can see how the interviewee thinks and operates, and even fewer provide a look into their lives as normal people opposed to famous e-sports figures or characters within the scene. The whole point of these interviews is to expose a different side of the person in a positive way to show the reader that at the end of the day, everyone has a story to tell and we are all just human beings. A bit of the interview can be found below along with a link to the piece in its entirety.
Please keep in mind these questions are slightly dated and were postponed due to a delay on my end. Apologies for context in some areas being a bit confusing.
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Like many of us that have become somewhat used to the e-sports scene, at one point we fanned out a certain gamer or team. For you, Flash and MMA have been your two favorite players, citing you were fans of both before they rose to fame. Anything particularly special about these two that you admire -- any personal connections or similarities?
Flash is a player I grew to like a lot not because of anything particular to him, but he was the player that was doing really well/stood out when I started watching Starcraft. It was a few years ago during the Gom Classic, but I remember Tasteless continuously talking about this Flash kid that was super young but raping nerds left and right, and it being the first Starcraft tournament that I watched, I guess watching him play so well throughout the tournament just naturally made me start rooting for him.
So once he became "God Young-Ho" it was such a proud moment for me having watched him just get better and better and become super dominant over the course of the next two-three years that I watched Broodwar. As for MMA, I started to root for him for a similar reason to Flash - MLG Columbus was the first Starcraft 2 tournament I watched, and MMA ended up winning.
Having rooted for a terran player in Broodwar, it was cool seeing a terran player doing so well, so he became my "favorite" too. However, I've mentioned this before but in Starcraft 2 I don't really have a "favorite" anymore - after meeting a lot of the players (including MMA), they've mostly become dongsengs/oppas/friends to me and I just root for those that I've gotten closer to now.
There's been discussion already brewing within the Brood War forums that the roots have been somewhat strangled and the community is holding on its own two legs attemping to remain standing. Will TeamLiquid forever be 'that Starcraft site' or do you think with the evolution of competitive gaming, one day Starcraft will just be 'another game' in its coverage roster?
I don't think that Starcraft will ever be just "another game" for TeamLiquid. It's true the site has a come a long way in just a few years with the release of Starcraft 2 and now the addition of dota2 coverage, and while I can see why some people are saying that the site isn't what it was before, I don't think this is a bad thing.
There are options on the site so you can customize what coverage/forums you want for yourself, and while the Brood War scene is definitely struggling now to stay alive, I don't think you can really blame the site for this. There are a host of other reasons that I won't really get into here, but I just think people shouldn't try to be so exclusive about what they want the site to be. As for TeamLiquid becoming just an esports coverage site with StarCraft as just "another game" - I really, really can't see this happening.
The site is still used very, very frequently by everyone involved in the StarCraft scene, is quick to update on the latest news, and I know for a fact that even the addition of dota2 coverage had a lot of discussion put into it before it was even implemented. Also, if anyone still has doubts, they should read Nazgul's post when TL started dota2 coverage - I'm pretty sure he addressed this very issue.
Where do you realistically see the higher echelon of professional gaming (e-sports) in five years? Striving and twice as big as it is now or just slightly larger? Declining slowly or totally forgotten and shunned? Will it ever be accepted as a 'sport' or 'career' choice in your eyes?
I think right now we're at a critical stage of development - we've seen esports' potential and how it can cultivate the kind of intense passion we see both at live tournaments and through viewership numbers on online streams. I definitely think it's only going to get bigger as more and more people become exposed to the fact that people actually game for a living. As the different scenes (SC2, LoL, Dota2, etc) get more and more organized and professional, I think we'll see the notion of esports being a viable career choice becoming more accepted in the public eye.
Flash is a player I grew to like a lot not because of anything particular to him, but he was the player that was doing really well/stood out when I started watching Starcraft. It was a few years ago during the Gom Classic, but I remember Tasteless continuously talking about this Flash kid that was super young but raping nerds left and right, and it being the first Starcraft tournament that I watched, I guess watching him play so well throughout the tournament just naturally made me start rooting for him.
So once he became "God Young-Ho" it was such a proud moment for me having watched him just get better and better and become super dominant over the course of the next two-three years that I watched Broodwar. As for MMA, I started to root for him for a similar reason to Flash - MLG Columbus was the first Starcraft 2 tournament I watched, and MMA ended up winning.
Having rooted for a terran player in Broodwar, it was cool seeing a terran player doing so well, so he became my "favorite" too. However, I've mentioned this before but in Starcraft 2 I don't really have a "favorite" anymore - after meeting a lot of the players (including MMA), they've mostly become dongsengs/oppas/friends to me and I just root for those that I've gotten closer to now.
There's been discussion already brewing within the Brood War forums that the roots have been somewhat strangled and the community is holding on its own two legs attemping to remain standing. Will TeamLiquid forever be 'that Starcraft site' or do you think with the evolution of competitive gaming, one day Starcraft will just be 'another game' in its coverage roster?
I don't think that Starcraft will ever be just "another game" for TeamLiquid. It's true the site has a come a long way in just a few years with the release of Starcraft 2 and now the addition of dota2 coverage, and while I can see why some people are saying that the site isn't what it was before, I don't think this is a bad thing.
There are options on the site so you can customize what coverage/forums you want for yourself, and while the Brood War scene is definitely struggling now to stay alive, I don't think you can really blame the site for this. There are a host of other reasons that I won't really get into here, but I just think people shouldn't try to be so exclusive about what they want the site to be. As for TeamLiquid becoming just an esports coverage site with StarCraft as just "another game" - I really, really can't see this happening.
The site is still used very, very frequently by everyone involved in the StarCraft scene, is quick to update on the latest news, and I know for a fact that even the addition of dota2 coverage had a lot of discussion put into it before it was even implemented. Also, if anyone still has doubts, they should read Nazgul's post when TL started dota2 coverage - I'm pretty sure he addressed this very issue.
Where do you realistically see the higher echelon of professional gaming (e-sports) in five years? Striving and twice as big as it is now or just slightly larger? Declining slowly or totally forgotten and shunned? Will it ever be accepted as a 'sport' or 'career' choice in your eyes?
I think right now we're at a critical stage of development - we've seen esports' potential and how it can cultivate the kind of intense passion we see both at live tournaments and through viewership numbers on online streams. I definitely think it's only going to get bigger as more and more people become exposed to the fact that people actually game for a living. As the different scenes (SC2, LoL, Dota2, etc) get more and more organized and professional, I think we'll see the notion of esports being a viable career choice becoming more accepted in the public eye.
The interview can be read in full here: http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/186116/
