Caster Feedback Thread - Page 20

On August 29 2018 20:41 Wardi wrote:
The reality is, as much as some of you hate it and want to complain about it if we talk about subs, donations, bits and we act in a more sell-out way, we make more money. Significantly more. Actually it's crazy but I went from the point of "I don't think I can continue to do this" to "I'm fairly comfortable continuing doing this" because I took on a more sell-out approach, I decided I would push sub goals, donation goals, mention things every hour etc.

On August 30 2018 01:23 billynasty wrote:
I've been a big fan of Wardi's for years now. And he's right, the majority of people have no idea how much effort & work is put into casting these online events. I've seen him casting events in the past that only got a couple hundred viewers, and he still works/casts as if its in front of 1000's. As a musician myself I can tell you if i'm playing in front of a small crowd, that isn't easy to do. The countless hours over the years these casters put into Starcraft2, to the vocal minority might be about making money, but to all of us it should be self evident that its because of their love of the game & the passion they have for it all.

For myself i know when i'm doing something because i care about it, when i hear something overly critical about what i'm doing, even if its just from 1 person out of 100, it'll get under my skin & its what i'll gravitate to. It's sometimes hard to think about the big picture when someones sticking you in your gut with a fork haha. The point i'm trying to make here is that the overwhelming amount of viewers appreciate & respect what our SC2 casters do. It's mostly the minority who you'll never make happy & they'll just always have something negative to say about anything. For the most of us I believe we all realize we have it better than most other games in terms of our SC2 casters. All you need to do is watch a LoL event or some other game to realize how lucky we are to have the group we have.

Forum threads & posts tend to be more focused on criticizing than on giving praise or simply saying thank you. Perhaps we as a community could do a better job in that regard. We all have our favorites when it comes to casters or personalities, but nobody in this scene is going to be making millions of dollars, they're doing what they do because they love this game & we should not only appreciate that, but respect that as well.

On August 29 2018 20:41 Wardi wrote:


And you know why Day9 doesn't cast and run online SC2 tournaments? Because the money he would make from it is not worth his time or effort. I'm sure it'd be great if Artosis and Tasteless cast all these online events too - but they won't because the pay isn't there.

This entire thread needs to take a step back and realize that there are some pretty huge differences between casting a WCS/GSL and to casting online. I've been reading this the last few days and I can't sit and read without providing a perspective which seems to be completely ignored.

When you cast online you are in almost the worst conditions possible to put on great commentary - you are likely in charge of observing, production issues, player issues. You are also likely having some mindfulness put towards your stream chat, social media and more because all of these things are your job.

The goal in a BTTV stream, or one of my own streams, is of course to cast SC2 games and to provide SC2 content and tournaments - but it's also about making the money to run these events and to support ourselves. When all the premiere casters cast stuff online it is not their main source of income - their own personal playing streams are alongside with the payment they are getting for casting big tournaments - so they don't have to do the whole selling-out jive.

When me / Rifkin cast, we need to make money. This isn't us being greedy, this isn't us thinking we found a goose laying gold eggs with SC2, it's because we need to pay rent, eat and to you know sort of enjoy a bit of life at the same time? Go look at the thousands of dollars BTTV give out as prize money on a regular basis - this is all money Rifkin makes but has to put BACK INTO the system to be able to then make more money again. I have the same thing, I did the math and I put in about 40-50% of all money I make on stream back into tournaments. There are a lot of costs of running a tournament stream instead of just coming online and laddering.

The reality is, as much as some of you hate it and want to complain about it if we talk about subs, donations, bits and we act in a more sell-out way, we make more money. Significantly more. Actually it's crazy but I went from the point of "I don't think I can continue to do this" to "I'm fairly comfortable continuing doing this" because I took on a more sell-out approach, I decided I would push sub goals, donation goals, mention things every hour etc.

And honestly, I hate it -- do you know how much more I would prefer to not have to repeat myself again and again and to be able to take the time to have even more fun with the chat or to recap the last fight in the previous game as the next game gets going? I'm sure my viewership would go up if I didn't have to run ads every 30-45 minutes - but if I don't I can't afford to run events and I can't afford to stick around as a SC2 caster.

Now I've focused primarily on the "money" side of things, I want to tap back to the difference between casting online and casting at an event. Yesterday I was casting QLASH league with Rotti and honestly I felt like I put on a horrific cast compared to Rotti. I messed up a lot - my observing was bad because we had production issues and so I had to fix that and trying to communicate with chat, fix mic issues and observe while ALSO listening to what Rotti is saying and responding is extremely difficult. This might sound stupid, but this bad start doesn't exactly help you "get in the zone" or get rolling - in fact something like this at a start of a broadcast always lingers on my mind and I never feel I can focus properly from there.

The stresses of doing your own online production obviously get less with how much money you put into it - if you have a co-caster you will miss less, if you have an admin you don't have to worry about the players as much. If somethings happened to me in my real life that day, that can come into play, which kind of leads me to my next point : People have off days.

You know what, some days I really suck. My focus isn't there, I'm not feeling it, it's the 7th Stargate Phoenix-Oracle opening in a row and my chat is complaining that I'm not analyzing the game even though we watched this for the last 2 hours already. When you cast long hours and when you cast almost every day, you're going to run into these issues and this is going to happen a lot more often and then it's going to be more recognized. Then people recognize it and call you out and that makes you feel bad too. The reality is you can't be your 100% every single online cast that you do, otherwise you'd be a f casting god. But the hours we have to put in and the regularity we have to put on a show means that mistakes are going to happen and people are going to realize them - we will have silly days and days where suddenly the words just escape us.

You compare this to the conditions of casting at an offline event. First up you're more physically amped up and on the ball - offline events are more important and higher stakes than a lot of online events and this is something you feel as a caster. You don't have to cast as many series in a row, so when you are casting you are more revitalized, it doesn't feel like you are repeating yourself because its the 8th series of the day and guess what, nobody vetoed Acid Plant AGAIN. The hype is there, your co-caster is right next to you and you're looking at each other and feeling the excitement, you're pointing at the screen and sharing moments of shock and awe in person.

You can stand up and jump and scream because you don't have to be sat down and observing the game - you can be comfortable in your mind because some poor soul in production is the one that has to make sure everything is going right. You don't have to interact with chat, make sure you're getting enough subs to pay for the event, enough bits to pay rent, because you already know you're being paid. Need a drink, talent manager is on it for you. You are looked after and there to cast and because of it you can do a freaking good job.

At home I can't sit and scream every hour every day and get hyped for every match, if I did that I would burn out too quickly. I can't be in a perfect condition every day. I have to worry about things outside of just casting the game. My job is more than just casting the game, compared to when I cast at a large event.

So can we please stop comparing our online casting with people's Blizzcon performances? It's ridiculous, it makes no sense at all and it really feels like you guys are just using it because you want the joy of shitting on people without actually putting any thought into the hundreds of extra things going on behind the scenes that we have to deal with to bring you these tournaments.

On August 30 2018 22:18 Seeker wrote:
The Caster Feedback Thread is not a place to needlessly bash casters. If your post does not actually provide any constructive criticism, then you will receive a mod action. Everyone, please be wary of what you post.

On August 31 2018 21:04 Seeker wrote:

No, I was not referring to your post. We've been getting complaints that the CFT has been lacking moderation, so I was making a note for everyone to see.

If I was referring to your post, I would have quoted you.

On October 29 2018 23:27 DSh1 wrote:
Regarding this years Blizzcon. Was it always like this? These ridiculous long breaks where every tournament is the most amazing ever? Come on: If you say that you thought IEM was the best tournament this year, but had 5 even more amazing events afterwards it gets borderline weird.