Good interviewers/journalists are hard to come by, there are very few throughout any medium in my opinion. This is the easiest, least offensive style of doing an interview/cast/write up, so that's the style a lot of people use.
The bottom line is that if you stick your neck out and actually went about interviews/writeups or whatever with a real critical eye and got to the heart of things, you better be damn near untouchable in the coverage scene because you're going to burn bridges or be that guy people don't want to give an interview to because they're going to be forced to come up with some real shit on the spot and not the standard PR bullshit they get to give all the time. As a result, people will end up looking bad or give out info that the management didn't want out, or what have you.
As a good example I'd point to Joe Rogan of all people. Here's one of the more recent JRE's where he's talking to the guy who makes Bulletproof Coffee.
Skip to about 2:31. The bulletproof guy earlier talked about the unacceptable levels of microtoxins in commercially available coffees and how the EU have made sanctions about the levels of microtoxins in the coffees used there and as a result America gets all the lower quality coffee. Joe is hit with some stats which he kicks out at the guy and despite an attempted defelction of the question by the cohost, Joe goes after the guy and says he has to get his immediate response to those stats. While the Bulletproof guy did have a pretty good response, Joe goes after the issue and doesn't let him get away with PR bullshit and gets to the heart of the issue. Later he goes on to talk about the ethics of talking about his coffee versus other coffees based on lack of research on commercially available coffees. He does all of this while appearing entertaining, and without being outright offensive toward the interviewee.
The problem is, a guy like Joe is a big guy, you know? He's a major respected comedian, and UFC commentator. He doesn't get hurt that much of this guy doesn't really want to come on one of Joe's casts again, but if you're DarkxSlayerx291 or whatever and you're writing small editorials about starcraft, if you probe too deep onto an issue and make Artosis or Day9 or something give an answer that makes them sound bad and they freeze that reporter out, that is a huge blow to him/her (probably a career ending blow). You need to be somewhat established already if you want to be that interviewer (in real media, if you're representing TIME or the New Yorker or whatever, a lot of people can't afford to lose all the coverage that an editorial like that gives them by freezing them out).
I didn't know what I was missing until I read this. I completely agree with the criticism and wish that everybody casting tournament games would read this thread to see what they could improve on. I feel that current StarCraft II casters could learn a lot about what information to present by listening to radio announcers announcing sports games. They are doing the same thing the StarCraft casters are doing, just for a different sport.
I think as a Viewer I can agree that SC2 Casts are missing the criticism that other games might have, barely anyone ever says anything bad against a player, even if he messed up a lot.
On June 12 2013 01:06 domisama wrote: I think as a Viewer I can agree that SC2 Casts are missing the criticism that other games might have, barely anyone ever says anything bad against a player, even if he messed up a lot.
Actually you should never say something bad about a player, you should highlight the mistake and explain why it is. And it is exactly the same for brilliant actions, you absolutely must not tell "OMG HE IS SO AWESOME, he is the best [insert sport] player ever !", but once again highlight the performance itself and why it was brilliant, and maybe explain why other way of doing it would have failed. You have to remain absolutely neutral to either parts and focus on the game and its mechanism itself. You can however congratulate someone for its achievements because it is not judgement, just an assessment of what just happened.
On June 12 2013 00:26 The_Darkness wrote: Although there is perhaps a grain of truth in some of what you say, your post generally amounts to unjustified whining supported by cherry picked examples.
You seem extremely mad. The OP is a forum poster with a solid opinion that many agree with. Not a scientific researcher paid millions of dollars to discuss the subject of quality casting....nor would this be the place for that anyway.
On June 12 2013 00:28 freetgy wrote: Casting teams need to have a solid "casting plan" about how they are going to cast a game, when they can say what, and when they can't.
Excellent idea, and it doesn't have to be mapped out for every game. A solid template like the one you mentioned would suffice.
You found me out. As an official employee of Blizzard (I am actually the COO of Blizzard's Antarctica operations) it is my duty to tell you that Blizzard does not care about the opinions of the great unwashed masses (of which you and the OP form a key part) regarding casters and organizations that are not owned or employed by Blizzard. Now that that is clarified -- if you want to effect change don't you think you should have some clue about what changes casters should make? The OP is just a rambling rant. Say what works. Say what doesn't work and propose a way to fix it, or if you're not sure how to do so, say that.
I had a very long elaborate post that would end our little game, but after reading it back I realized how dull it would make things. Victory, surprisingly can be quite boring.
On June 12 2013 03:32 The_Darkness wrote: Now that that is clarified -- if you want to effect change don't you think you should have some clue about what changes casters should make?
You can't expect the man to do everything alone, he set the mood, certainly a good start! Many posters in this thread have come up with examples and ideas. It's these many hands working together that solve a problem. Don't expect the magic man with the single magical post to reveal both problem and solution in one go. The uh, hmm, balance team knows this quite well, don't they friend.
These discussions come up a lot and seem way too nebulous. There are a lot of great casters, and a lot of great videos being made. But it seems like you'll get one tournament with a caster who people don't like and people act like the community is going to collapse because your brother who you were trying to get into Starcraft said "Boring".
When I watch a large tournament I don't even usually care who the caster is...I usually just care if it's an interesting game at that point. But at the same time, when I go to watch VODs on youtube or SC2Casts there are people who I'll always go back to (Crota, Psy, Madals).
I guess my point is that a lot of organizations seem to be hiring the same exact casters each time (because there are a lot of people casting on the internet, but only a few people doing it as a job where they can drop everything and fly out and cast somewhere). I think that the community needs to support up and coming casters and ask organizations to consider everyone...I'd love for someone to fly Psy out to an event and have him just make fun of some players and not take things too seriously. The key, is not to just cry out stuff like "Well, no Tastosis, who cares"
The OP was good. featuring constructive criticism of some specific videos. I just wish people wouldn't take the attitude of "Blizzard produced a lame video...heh, what idiots, why didn't they post on TL first asking for advice?" The attitude should be "Blizzard produced a lame video....let me take a few of the VODs and make my own that'll be better." or "I know what specifically can be improved upon here"
My last point....don't compare SC2 casters to professional sports casters. Sports casters have 3 producers helping them constantly and 1-2 spotters who are watching EVERYTHING and telling the commentators stuff that they missed. You can watch a cast from home and pick up stuff that the commentator missed, but that doesn't mean that the commentator suddenly sucks.
On June 12 2013 05:22 schmitty9800 wrote: These discussions come up a lot and seem way too nebulous. There are a lot of great casters, and a lot of great videos being made. But it seems like you'll get one tournament with a caster who people don't like and people act like the community is going to collapse because your brother who you were trying to get into Starcraft said "Boring". [...]
Well, if people have been talking about what was written in the op, it wasn't just one tournament and on caster, it was THE tournament and the official coverage video made by Blizzard.
On June 12 2013 05:22 schmitty9800 wrote: These discussions come up a lot and seem way too nebulous. There are a lot of great casters, and a lot of great videos being made. But it seems like you'll get one tournament with a caster who people don't like and people act like the community is going to collapse because your brother who you were trying to get into Starcraft said "Boring". [...]
Well, if people have been talking about what was written in the op, it wasn't just one tournament and on caster, it was THE tournament and the official coverage video made by Blizzard.
Don't get me wrong I liked the OP's criticism, but a lot of people commenting are saying "Well this is the reason I don't watch as much SC2." I really doubt that they were watching WCS, said "Ugh", and then they started watching LoL or Call of Duty.
Most casters don't know what they're doing because most likely none of them actually took a journalism course or whatever course it is that professional commentators take to be able to have such a profession in tv or radio.
I really dislike the fact that the three tournaments for season 2 seem to be "out of synch". Currently the only thing that is happening is WCS AM - challenger league. All three challenger leagues should be on at the same time IMO.
I really hope that season finals will be given to the region with the most sensible climate, i.e. NOT to Korea when they have their super sweaty summer time. That will affect performance of players unused to such extremes. Heating a room is simple, but getting rid of humidity and cooling it takes an effort (and lots of energy).
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On June 12 2013 05:49 Apolo wrote: Most casters don't know what they're doing because most likely none of them actually took a journalism course or whatever course it is that professional commentators take to be able to have such a profession in tv or radio.
That is part of the charm of some of them, because "professional journalism" might be lacking in enthusiasm and that would be bad for a cast. Since eSport is a "youth thing" a certain lack of conventions seems a good idea and the overly analytical statisticgathering of the american sports journalists would rather put me off ... because who is interested in the number of rebounds? The same could become true for covering Starcraft ...
On June 12 2013 01:06 domisama wrote: I think as a Viewer I can agree that SC2 Casts are missing the criticism that other games might have, barely anyone ever says anything bad against a player, even if he messed up a lot.
Actually you should never say something bad about a player, you should highlight the mistake and explain why it is. And it is exactly the same for brilliant actions, you absolutely must not tell "OMG HE IS SO AWESOME, he is the best [insert sport] player ever !", but once again highlight the performance itself and why it was brilliant, and maybe explain why other way of doing it would have failed. You have to remain absolutely neutral to either parts and focus on the game and its mechanism itself. You can however congratulate someone for its achievements because it is not judgement, just an assessment of what just happened.
You're absolutely right. A side effect of this is btw that the casters need to know a lot of the game or otherwise they wouldn't be able to do that.
This is one of the reasons why MLG, for example, is so tough to watch. The commentators actually kill it for me. Most of your criticisms have one thing in common: SEVERE INSINCERITY. Sometimes it's more fun to watch non-serious games (or even POOR quality games) when you have a caster that has both knowledge and light-hearted approach. This is why "la-la-la" things like IPL Fight Club were entertaining to me (and TLS Qualifiers... Too soon? D: )
Yeah it's clear that "hyping" should be done in collaboration with people that actually know something about the freaking players. But I don't really hate the emphasis of poor hyping. Did you watch the Eastern Conference Finals? They hyped the Pacers sooo freaking hard as both a method to create interest and the series and basically excuse the Heat for dragging their feet as always vs a grossly inferior opponent, and to not look like complete morons as analysts in the possible even that the Heat would actually lose the series. Going into the playoffs, not one soul picked the Pacers for reach the finals, so by the time the passed through and threatened, every heat fan and heat hater was like, "Oh. Yeah! The Pacer's are really good, guys. I'm serious! That's the ticket. The heat are still the team to beat, but oh man, watch out for this overachieving mediocre team!"
This is why when when a slaughter match is upon us (like, foreigner vs Bogus), they force themselves to say shit like, "Oh, so-and-so is the best zerg in all of Russia!"
On June 13 2013 05:02 Waxangel wrote: why is this thread about casting now
It has been about that since the beginning (problem #2 in the OP) ... and people have talked about their preferred casting style or caster behaviour.
I used one example from actual live casting. Everything else was about content around the games. The problems pertain casters as well, but most of the stuff is about content producers in general.
I never lost a word about whether play-by-play or analytical casting is the best or if casters must be good in the game or not. Most of that stuff has been talked to death already.
Why do we need Casters at all? I would like to think we're all intelligent enough to be able to look at a stream and go "Hey, that guy is building a barracks. Now he's building a Reaper. Heeeyyy he's going to open reaper harass!"
Why do we need vocally offensive manchildren to shout it into a Mic? I've never understood the concept. And, from what Iv'e gathered from everyone's posts here, these "Casters" don't even know the game, let alone understand it..
On June 14 2013 05:39 MrGh0st wrote: Why do we need Casters at all? I would like to think we're all intelligent enough to be able to look at a stream and go "Hey, that guy is building a barracks. Now he's building a Reaper. Heeeyyy he's going to open reaper harass!"
Why do we need vocally offensive manchildren to shout it into a Mic? I've never understood the concept. And, from what Iv'e gathered from everyone's posts here, these "Casters" don't even know the game, let alone understand it..
I just wasn't excited for WCS at all to be honest. I started watching it from the start, skipped the middle, except innovation,flash,parting,life group haha. And then I just sorta stopped caring as the season went on. I don't know why.
On June 14 2013 05:39 MrGh0st wrote: Why do we need Casters at all? I would like to think we're all intelligent enough to be able to look at a stream and go "Hey, that guy is building a barracks. Now he's building a Reaper. Heeeyyy he's going to open reaper harass!"
Why do we need vocally offensive manchildren to shout it into a Mic? I've never understood the concept. And, from what Iv'e gathered from everyone's posts here, these "Casters" don't even know the game, let alone understand it..
Truly magnificent.
The OP makes some excellent points about the scene over the last while.
EPT
