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On November 08 2013 05:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 05:21 Squat wrote:
It's entirely possible I was wrong about Husky, I never really watched his stuff, not my cup of tea.
So the question then, is his popularity a result of some vaguely defined vocal attributes, or because he was already an established name before SC2 even came out? His popularity is because he was one of the big 3 in SC2 beta, alongside Day9 and HD. Day9 focussed on streaming more, HD and Husky on Youtube. HD fell off sharply because he wasn't getting gigs after he lost his position at IPL and also due to a perception at the time that he was making too many incorrect calls and not keeping up with the meta. Husky was also getting all the best replays, so if you wanted to watch the coolest content at a time when there were very few tournaments, you had to watch it on Huskys channel.
Which would lead one to believe that there were quite a few other factors involved than vocal qualities. We can only speculate what it would have looked like if everyone had access to the same stuff.
Honestly though, the theory that somehow people will flock to a caster because of accents seems absurd, whenever ToD or Grubby are casting they got showered in praise.
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On November 08 2013 05:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 05:21 Squat wrote:
It's entirely possible I was wrong about Husky, I never really watched his stuff, not my cup of tea.
So the question then, is his popularity a result of some vaguely defined vocal attributes, or because he was already an established name before SC2 even came out? His popularity is because he was one of the big 3 in SC2 beta, alongside Day9 and HD. Day9 focussed on streaming more, HD and Husky on Youtube. HD fell off sharply because he wasn't getting gigs after he lost his position at IPL and also due to a perception at the time that he was making too many incorrect calls and not keeping up with the meta. Husky was also getting all the best replays, so if you wanted to watch the coolest content at a time when there were very few tournaments, you had to watch it on Huskys channel.
I don't know if HDStarcraft is forgotten. I think there must be a large group of Starcraft 2 fans that never post on forums and just checks out youtube, because while Husky gets ~100k viewers per video HDStarcraft still gets ~20k viewers. A higher view count than Day[9]'s videos actually.
The numbers seem slightly suspect, so maybe I'm missing some information.
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On November 08 2013 05:27 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 02:37 Vicissitude wrote:Thanks RESOqub for showing me the issues I have had with casting, but prior to your posts could not explain why. Insightful post (overly used words on TL, but still true). On November 08 2013 00:44 JustPassingBy wrote: You wouldn't have such a problem if you were watching sport on the television, it becomes very clear what the commentators are talking about 5 minutes into tuning in for the first time. While I do agree, make no mistake, I don't think it is as easy with SC2. If you compare the amount of knowledge you need to appreciate most sports on TV, e.g. football, to the amount of knowledge needed even understand SC2, it comes as no surprise that general casting of the game is littered with information that can be strange or incomprehensible for the fresh viewer. That being said, I still agree that they definitely could tone down the lingo quite a bit (your example of "Rax" versus "Barracks" is a striking one). As someone who understands the game, I certainly don't need this and I see no point in keeping it if it annoys new viewers. If we make SC2 less esoteric it will likely gather more viewers (and I believe the general consensus on this is that it is a good thing). On topic; I have no issue with accents, at all. I do believe that the OP could be right in the context of general sports, but frankly in SC2 we simply don't have a comparable number of viewers or casters. I don't really think this theorizing is applicable at the moment. As many have already said, I too put most weight on clarity of speech, a broad vocabulary, and a capability of sufficiently (note, without unnecessary complexity) revealing the games nuances during situations that are hard to follow. What I dislike is unnecessary shouting, too much talking about irrelevant subjects or, my personal gripe, faked enthusiasm. I have found myself not caring as much about irrelevant subjects as much as I first thought, mainly because this mostly serves to display some of the casters' personalities and, if we're lucky, some humor. When did I ever say that...? O.o (edit: referring to the quote)
I said that, but somehow the quote messed up
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On November 08 2013 07:18 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 05:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:On November 08 2013 05:21 Squat wrote:
It's entirely possible I was wrong about Husky, I never really watched his stuff, not my cup of tea.
So the question then, is his popularity a result of some vaguely defined vocal attributes, or because he was already an established name before SC2 even came out? His popularity is because he was one of the big 3 in SC2 beta, alongside Day9 and HD. Day9 focussed on streaming more, HD and Husky on Youtube. HD fell off sharply because he wasn't getting gigs after he lost his position at IPL and also due to a perception at the time that he was making too many incorrect calls and not keeping up with the meta. Husky was also getting all the best replays, so if you wanted to watch the coolest content at a time when there were very few tournaments, you had to watch it on Huskys channel. I don't know if HDStarcraft is forgotten. I think there must be a large group of Starcraft 2 fans that never post on forums and just checks out youtube, because while Husky gets ~100k viewers per video HDStarcraft still gets ~20k viewers. A higher view count than Day[9]'s videos actually. The numbers seem slightly suspect, so maybe I'm missing some information.
Day9s vods do not factor in the live viewers, his vod numbers have always been a bit on the low sid. HDs "fall" was from 200k to 20k, that's such a huge drop off. He also doesn't cast tournaments anymore and has had no real presence since IPL.
Husky ultimately endured through personality, as a lot of casters do.
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Well, I feel like many of the play-by-play can be incredible even with little knowledge if they do the excitement / hyping thing properly.
Something like 2:04 - 2:41 here(Finnish):
+ Show Spoiler +
However, the issue with most casters is that they .. don't sound sincere while getting excited and it ends up just being screaming and sounding fake / annoying. Only Tobi does this well in my opinion, out of all LoL / SC2 / DotA2 casters I've listened to.
One of the most surprisingly successful casters is Force Strategy or whatever it was. 270k subscribers is pretty impressive considering I've never heard him casting a tournament. Shows that you can also do well by being calm and analytical. Then again, he seems to have mostly moved on from SC2.
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On November 08 2013 19:14 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 07:18 Grumbels wrote:On November 08 2013 05:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:On November 08 2013 05:21 Squat wrote:
It's entirely possible I was wrong about Husky, I never really watched his stuff, not my cup of tea.
So the question then, is his popularity a result of some vaguely defined vocal attributes, or because he was already an established name before SC2 even came out? His popularity is because he was one of the big 3 in SC2 beta, alongside Day9 and HD. Day9 focussed on streaming more, HD and Husky on Youtube. HD fell off sharply because he wasn't getting gigs after he lost his position at IPL and also due to a perception at the time that he was making too many incorrect calls and not keeping up with the meta. Husky was also getting all the best replays, so if you wanted to watch the coolest content at a time when there were very few tournaments, you had to watch it on Huskys channel. I don't know if HDStarcraft is forgotten. I think there must be a large group of Starcraft 2 fans that never post on forums and just checks out youtube, because while Husky gets ~100k viewers per video HDStarcraft still gets ~20k viewers. A higher view count than Day[9]'s videos actually. The numbers seem slightly suspect, so maybe I'm missing some information. Day9s vods do not factor in the live viewers, his vod numbers have always been a bit on the low sid. HDs "fall" was from 200k to 20k, that's such a huge drop off. He also doesn't cast tournaments anymore and has had no real presence since IPL. Husky ultimately endured through personality, as a lot of casters do.
Myeah, I was just wondering since I literally never hear about HDStarcraft outside of people reminiscing about the SC2 beta, yet I felt that he was still getting acceptable numbers. But I suppose that 20k is nothing compared to 200k before. The numbers seem high to me because I'm used to seeing streamers become happy when they get over 2k viewers.
I noticed that your videos get anywhere from 100k to 400k viewers (just in the last week), whereas for Husky, Day9 & HD it was a more consistent number. I guess that's because of difference in mainstream interest in a specific topic?
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On November 09 2013 00:36 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 19:14 TotalBiscuit wrote:On November 08 2013 07:18 Grumbels wrote:On November 08 2013 05:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:On November 08 2013 05:21 Squat wrote:
It's entirely possible I was wrong about Husky, I never really watched his stuff, not my cup of tea.
So the question then, is his popularity a result of some vaguely defined vocal attributes, or because he was already an established name before SC2 even came out? His popularity is because he was one of the big 3 in SC2 beta, alongside Day9 and HD. Day9 focussed on streaming more, HD and Husky on Youtube. HD fell off sharply because he wasn't getting gigs after he lost his position at IPL and also due to a perception at the time that he was making too many incorrect calls and not keeping up with the meta. Husky was also getting all the best replays, so if you wanted to watch the coolest content at a time when there were very few tournaments, you had to watch it on Huskys channel. I don't know if HDStarcraft is forgotten. I think there must be a large group of Starcraft 2 fans that never post on forums and just checks out youtube, because while Husky gets ~100k viewers per video HDStarcraft still gets ~20k viewers. A higher view count than Day[9]'s videos actually. The numbers seem slightly suspect, so maybe I'm missing some information. Day9s vods do not factor in the live viewers, his vod numbers have always been a bit on the low sid. HDs "fall" was from 200k to 20k, that's such a huge drop off. He also doesn't cast tournaments anymore and has had no real presence since IPL. Husky ultimately endured through personality, as a lot of casters do. Myeah, I was just wondering since I literally never hear about HDStarcraft outside of people reminiscing about the SC2 beta, yet I felt that he was still getting acceptable numbers. But I suppose that 20k is nothing compared to 200k before. The numbers seem high to me because I'm used to seeing streamers become happy when they get over 2k viewers. I noticed that your videos get anywhere from 100k to 400k viewers (just in the last week), whereas for Husky, Day9 & HD it was a more consistent number. I guess that's because of difference in mainstream interest in a specific topic?
Husky also have a great following trough his other projects and has been extremely good at building the husky brand.
To answer other points in this thread I did not intend to put voice on a pedestal and the defining factor but rather one of the big ones, character, personality and presence is of course more important, but they are all delivered with a voice; one which can sound differentely in great amount of ways and that I do hold the current casters to a high standard, but I actually do think the standard is still too low and that in years when these will be replaced by retirement or whatever, we will try to objectively find the new casters that will be good for years to come.
In principle I think there are always people out there who can be as exciting or good as the casters now without shortcomings in voice or other areas as well. But writing about the other areas would require an article serie about the caster as a whole.
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EPT
