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Howdy TL. I'm AlphaFerg, CSL Caster, ESFI writer, and co-host of the Data Mined Out podcast. I've been writing a biweekly column for a couple months now, and figured a forum thread here would be a great place to discuss the topics I write about.
The e-sports industry is new and exciting - but there's also a lot of problems that affect the growth of the industry. I write to address those topics, and to hopefully promote discussion to solve these issues. I have pretty high standards about what e-sports can accomplish, and often make comparisons to the established spectator sport industry. Please feel free to contribute your own voice to the discussion - the more, the better.
New! Most Recent Column - 4/11/2013 - The Hundred Trillion WCS Player Report
"With so many people now in the running for the WCS Premier League, it becomes apparent that there’s no easy way to describe all the participants. What happens if an absolute nobody makes it in? What will we know about them? How can we prepare ourselves?"
"Every player description starts with some sort of accomplishment or award that signifies their importance.
- Two-time GSL Champion.
- One-time MLG Champion.
- Four-time IEM runner-up.
- Lone Star Clash Qualifier participant.
- Best player at the school this player attends.
- Won a LAN in Singapore that four other people showed up to.
- The captain of a team you’ve never heard of.
- Highest APM on the SEA server.
- Defending champion of Fantasy Proleague.
- Has over 1000 comment karma from r/starcraft alone!"
Archive
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I think it's very true that it's quite difficult to spectate SC2 game without having at least some degree of understanding of the game.
Would UI modifications for streams/games simplify this issue?
For tournaments, if there was some sort of a live panel of "Who is in the lead?" that takes polling from the crowd/stream viewer, it'd make this easier somewhat. (Polling system similar to one used in Trials of Xelnaga)
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While I agree with your conclusion: starcraft is not as accessible as football, and probably less than dota2 even, I think this is inherent in a strategy game, also, that is what commentators are for (explaining the basic elements of who is ahead and how).
I think it's an assumption that sc2 SHOULD be just as accessible as football. It won't be.
That's the whole point of a strategy game, it is complex and takes time to understand and then master. As opposed to a FPS or MOBA.
Not to say we can't help make it more accessible with statistics (like GSL), better commentating, better camera work, etc. But, I think games don't NEED to all be ultra-accessible, and it's a myth that a strategy game even can be.
I'll be happy if I'm wrong though, and there is a way for an interesting RTS to become as widespread as soccer ^^
edit: I think having more in-game statistics (on screen) would make a huge difference, such as:
- number of workers
- units lost
- army size
- tech spending
- APM
- etc,
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I like your article on over saturation. This over saturation existed in most sports for a long time too until the leagues merged together. One thing that made it beneficial for sports to combine into a single league was the fact that players only had so much time to practice/compete. Given that sc2 is an individual sport, I see it more akin to tennis/golf where there are over a hundred tournaments a year. I think the more team based esports like league of legends or counter strike are more likely to become a single league. I think it's just the most effective way for players to make as much salary as possible.
As far as branding, given that sc2 is a team sport, I see sponsorships only becoming even more important and I see teams taking a smaller role (their role is already pretty small) other than to provide a group of sponsors.
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I wrote a similar article here: What makes an E-Sport that explorer similar areas to what you did, but didn't agree to the same conclusion.
I also spoke about the spectator importance a little bit here: Once Upon an E-Sport & the balance Tournaments have to work with maintaing the interest of the three major characters of an event(s): Traffic Tournament Jams
I think my biggest gripe with this article is the comparison to sports. I know we refer to competitive gaming often times as "E-Sports" but the reality is, is that the "sport" part of E-Sports is more in reference to a player's height or ability to play the game (as well as work/practice ethics associated)
Right off the bat, you compare it to Football and it's just not a fair comparison by far. Neither from a spectator perspective, nor from an organization.
Mark Ferraz, owner of Quantic Gaming, had to disband his organization due to sponsors pulling out. On the Data Mined Out podcast last week, he acknowledged that they probably spent too much time on player development. In my head, I couldn’t help but make the comparison to Evil Geniuses, which despite having mediocre results, is involved in notable marketing projects with companies like Kingston. IdrA driving a Bugatti Veyron does nothing to improve his APM, but it does reinforce that “bad boy” branding, which creates excitement for the audience when he does play.
Your opening reference contradicts that of the other investors who felt they were too emotionally-involved and thus were able to cut players, made friends and failed to maximize their line-up potential (and follow-up marketing). They had their youtube section, 2-3 different teams [LoL, CoD & SC2] but took advantage of none of them throughout (even when they had NaNiwa & SaSe or when they sent Illusion to Korean). Their player involvement was great, but too much on player development? More like too many players that they thought could develop and overall, they sunk for more than just "too much player development".
I agree 100% with spectator development:
Mark Ferraz, owner of Quantic Gaming, had to disband his organization due to sponsors pulling out. On the Data Mined Out podcast last week, he acknowledged that they probably spent too much time on player development. In my head, I couldn’t help but make the comparison to Evil Geniuses, which despite having mediocre results, is involved in notable marketing projects with companies like Kingston. IdrA driving a Bugatti Veyron does nothing to improve his APM, but it does reinforce that “bad boy” branding, which creates excitement for the audience when he does play.
I agree 100% with this and I wrote similarly with comparisons to Tribes: Ascends failure to create a proper spectator client. I felt your article could have definitely used more comparisons.
From "What makes an E-Sport - Armchair Athleticism":
What makes a game an E-Sport? Many games are played competitively, but not all of them are viewed as competitively thrilling or entertaining. Recently, as titles are coming and going, we’ve learned that not all games can be both competitively skillful as well as be interesting to watch. Tribes often showed traits of a very skillfully demanding game, but could not portray this skill in a meaningful way for the viewer.
Passing in Tribes: Ascend required a lot of timing and coordination at ultra-high speeds, but the game itself was difficult to navigate as an observer and thus, difficult to enjoy as a spectator.
A lot of games are played competitively amongst friends, online foes and small communities without necessarily becoming anything more than a pastime. So what is the attraction towards making a game an E-Sport? Right off the bat we can say that it adds a level of exposure and marketing towards your company and game. It attracts another level of dedicated players and fans with the aim in playing as talented as your professional-level players. This, in turn, helps populate your servers and games, extends the longevity of your product as well as increase sales overtime.
I don't think downtime is an issue, televised sports play a lot of commercials to compensate for a lot of breaks as well. MLG takes advantage of their analysis areas to compensate for time with Axslav and uses a whiteboard as well. These similarities are something you can definitely make. NASL uses funny videos, commercials as well as interviews/one-on-ones & highlights to really keep the crowd going.
but they unfortunately designed it based on a spectator base that plays the game already. People who haven’t played StarCraft 2, and who don’t follow current builds and strategies, have an immense hill to climb when trying to spectate the game. Often, armies of seemingly equal sizes will engage, with one being the clear victor.
This is the issue with all E-Sports. Some games cannot be made to inform the spectator on what's happening. I wrote something similar in my previous article. I think this is a huge issue on your article, because determining who is winning is not necessarily important. While I can see in Football, who has an advantage, the more exciting part is the big pass or play which can easily be determined as successful or not. StarCraft II has no problem displaying this with harassment, in-game attacks, etc..
From "What makes an E-Sport - Armchair Athleticism":
2. It must have a good demonstration of skill in a spectacular way. The word “spectacular” was mentioned in my first point and it is an essential piece to maintain viewership and excitement levels. This helps draw in more viewers who are not familiar with the game, but can easily digest what is going on. Demonstrated skill is layered by the amount of active knowledge and participation a spectator has for the game.
For fighting games, two foes duke it out to overcome one another.
For first-person shooters, coordinated teams of players determine the best trajectory towards achieving their goal.
In real-time strategy games; players command a base and collect resources to establish an army to overcome their opponent.
These are preliminary understandings of a video-game genre. How well do video-games today display the difficulty of these goals to the average viewer? If we were to take each game further, we’d see there is another level of knowledge demanded from the spectator and an aspect to consider for the players involved, let’s take real-time strategy games for example:
Real-time Strategy Games: A player must simultaneously efficiently ensure his resources are kept low (macromanagement) to produce a manageable army against his opponent’s planned attack (timing attack during a point of time the other player would be typically vulnerable).
Fighting games as well also show this distinct easy advantage and demonstration of skill. E-Sports has always been an you're either in or you're out and its accessibility is equal to that (which is not parallel to athletic sports where you don't need to be "in" on any level to enjoy certain moments). In addition, a lot of people don't understand Football as well (no offense to women, but the women I've been around with often go: "I'm so confused, I don't understand what's happening - anecdotal, I know, but it does reveal that Football is not that introduced/basic as the author leads it on to seem). If we take FPS spectating, it's even more difficult to really show any advantages or better yet: demonstration of skill and I felt you missed the mark there.
I think your article could use the following:
- Less comparison to athletic professional sports
- More examples of other E-Sports and competitive games and where they shine best or lack the most
- The importance and difference of keeping spectators entertained interested in your event, even with downtime from both in-house attendants as well as online spectators
- More talk about spectator clients and the demand for better observer tools [give some examples]
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On December 28 2012 07:31 tili wrote:
While I agree with your conclusion: starcraft is not as accessible as football, and probably less than dota2 even, I think this is inherent in a strategy game, also, that is what commentators are for (explaining the basic elements of who is ahead and how).
I think it's an assumption that sc2 SHOULD be just as accessible as football. It won't be.
That's the whole point of a strategy game, it is complex and takes time to understand and then master. As opposed to a FPS or MOBA.
Not to say we can't help make it more accessible with statistics (like GSL), better commentating, better camera work, etc. But, I think games don't NEED to all be ultra-accessible, and it's a myth that a strategy game even can be.
I'll be happy if I'm wrong though, and there is a way for an interesting RTS to become as widespread as soccer ^^
edit: I think having more in-game statistics (on screen) would make a huge difference, such as:
- number of workers
- units lost
- army size
- tech spending
- APM
- etc,
Ooooh smart stuff. It brings about questions like "Is it possible for a strategy game to be a spectator sport?" Definitely stuff that will be interesting to see develop over the next year (which I think will be the make or break point for SC2). Sponsors are starting to get antsy on ROIs, as we saw from Quantic.
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On December 28 2012 08:23 AlphaFerg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2012 07:31 tili wrote:
While I agree with your conclusion: starcraft is not as accessible as football, and probably less than dota2 even, I think this is inherent in a strategy game, also, that is what commentators are for (explaining the basic elements of who is ahead and how).
I think it's an assumption that sc2 SHOULD be just as accessible as football. It won't be.
That's the whole point of a strategy game, it is complex and takes time to understand and then master. As opposed to a FPS or MOBA.
Not to say we can't help make it more accessible with statistics (like GSL), better commentating, better camera work, etc. But, I think games don't NEED to all be ultra-accessible, and it's a myth that a strategy game even can be.
I'll be happy if I'm wrong though, and there is a way for an interesting RTS to become as widespread as soccer ^^
edit: I think having more in-game statistics (on screen) would make a huge difference, such as:
- number of workers
- units lost
- army size
- tech spending
- APM
- etc,
Ooooh smart stuff. It brings about questions like "Is it possible for a strategy game to be a spectator sport?" Definitely stuff that will be interesting to see develop over the next year (which I think will be the make or break point for SC2). Sponsors are starting to get antsy on ROIs, as we saw from Quantic.
They always were.
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New Column!
Building a non-player audience
"If you require your spectators to understand current strategies, to know builds and counters, and to understand who the players are, you are aiming at a very small audience (and you are requiring them to do a lot of work, simply to watch your game)... It’s a market largely depending on having your audience being familiar with playing your game. It brings up issues like, what happens when another game becomes more popular (League of Legends), and what happens when the game changes massively (Heart of the Swarm)? Will enough people come back to StarCraft 2 to keep rising viewer numbers? Building a business model around those types of questions is risky."
"Therefore, if we want to grow our audience, we need to give non-players a reason to learn and become familiar with the game. And we can’t do it within the game. Saying that Spanishiwa was revolutionary for popularizing no-gas expand builds means nothing when you have no concept of what it takes to play the game."
"If Star Wars was just a film about space wizards killing aliens, it’d have been shot down and society would have moved on. But Star Wars instead focused on the familiar elements by telling a similar story with real-world themes. Small-town losers with big dreams, brash leaders with romance in their hearts, and the fight against evil are all common themes to our lives, and Star Wars simply painted that story onto an unfamiliar background. By tying in the familiar to the strange, audiences grew to embrace the unfamiliar and in turn, Star Wars has become an ingrained part of our society. We need to advertise e-sports not in unfamiliar terms to those who play the game (“Player is the best at macro”) and instead advertise with the human elements."
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And people were wondering what esports journalism looks like...
Nice article.
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On January 17 2013 08:45 HorsemasterK wrote:
And people were wondering what esports journalism looks like...
Nice article.
Haha, I appreciate the sentiment, but I wouldn't consider myself a journalist. Simply writing my opinion in a way to promote discussion. Would love to hear thoughts on this stuff, though! Get back at me 
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Less spells, rather less use/priority of spell and more simplified. More focus on units themselves and simple abilities like stim, blink that are more direct about their effects. Spells confuse people. And frankly, i call sc2 spellcraft.
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I guess journalism is the flavor of the week on these forums. Instead of writing what we could be writing. How about just doing it?
Your analogy to film is hit and miss for me because we're talking about three ideas here: medium, storytelling and familiarity.
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Most Recent Column -1/18/13 - Streaming Sustainability
"I don’t think it’s my place to judge whether Own3d is an evil company, or whether Destiny and other streamers are simply whining about lost income. I don’t know the full story, I haven’t seen the contracts, and frankly, that judgment belongs in a courtroom somewhere. But I do think it speaks to a growing larger issue within the e-sports community – the issue about streaming sustainability."
"Streaming isn’t inherently bad – it helps a player promote themselves and it gives the community something to watch. The problem comes in when you look at the abundance of streaming. Right now on TL, there are over 80 streamers. More often than not, you’ll find one of them is a very high-level pro, such as Stephano or Jaedong. People looking for a stream will have no problem finding one. And everyone knows what happens when something is high supply and low demand."
"Why the hell are all of these players relying on stream income? It’s unreliable. It’s decreasing in value. It is extremely competitive. And because of the public nature of it, it’s time that you can’t spend preparing for a coming match – you wouldn’t want to use a strategy an opponent can sniff out."
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Most Recent Column - 1/28/13 - Mechanics vs. Strategy
"The enjoyment that comes from watching a sport, from a design standpoint, comes from understanding a strategy to meet a goal, and watching the team/player execute that strategy using their mechanics."
"Regardless, the moment you watch a game and understand the strategy the team or player is using, you become a part of that game. You know what is coming, and you know what to look for. You see the quarterback dropping back for a pass, you suddenly expect a throw to occur, because you know how far they need to get the ball. You know to watch the ball closely, and see if it lands in the hands of a receiver. Or, does the baseball player make a successful bunt, perhaps to allow a runner on base to advance from second to third."
"layer A puts down a spawning pool early, it gets scouted a minute later, and the zerglings finally make their way across the map to do damage in another minute or two. The spectators get to watch all of this draw out in real time – and that’s the iconic “surprise” build. Because of the long amount of time between the reveal and the resolution, the spectators either know exactly what’s going to happen (leaving the only potential surprise to be mechanical superiority), or they have no idea what is going on and are not engaged in the game."
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Good stuff, nice to see journalism going back to proper length articles, perhaps a bit too drama focussed, but personally, I find drama usually correlates pretty well with entertainment.
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Most Recent Column - 2/28/13 - The Lost Players
"For a second, let’s ignore the competitive aspect, and instead focus on players who like playing strategy games without the stress of winning and losing on ladder – players who simply like to build up bases and command armies. After all, the RTS genre does have a rich history in non-competitive formats. What does a person like this want out of an RTS? The campaign is a good place to start, a single player experience that slowly fleshes out your race’s units, spells, and strategies. But what if there was more to do? "
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Most Recent Column - 4/11/2013 - The Hundred Trillion WCS Player Report
"With so many people now in the running for the WCS Premier League, it becomes apparent that there’s no easy way to describe all the participants. What happens if an absolute nobody makes it in? What will we know about them? How can we prepare ourselves?"
"Every player description starts with some sort of accomplishment or award that signifies their importance.
- Two-time GSL Champion.
- One-time MLG Champion.
- Four-time IEM runner-up.
- Lone Star Clash Qualifier participant.
- Best player at the school this player attends.
- Won a LAN in Singapore that four other people showed up to.
- The captain of a team you’ve never heard of.
- Highest APM on the SEA server.
- Defending champion of Fantasy Proleague.
- Has over 1000 comment karma from r/starcraft alone!"
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Enjoyable read, gave me a few laughs.
Thanks
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fVOmX.jpg)
