EPTDay 9 has done a ton for this game, and I've seen Daily 100, he genuinely loves gaming, so it is hard to be so critical of him. These events need to wake up and see they don't need to pay someone a 20k appearance fee, there are plenty of good (and IMO at this point in time better) casters who will work for far less. I'm not advocating having players cast all the tournaments etc... I agree with Total Biscuit you need professional casters, and it sounds like most of them will work for reasonable rates. Sometimes I really wonder who is giving these tournaments advice about how much they should shell out to get some specific caster. When your paying an appearance fee larger than your prize pool to a caster there is something wrong with the business model.
The Analytical Caster - A Twitter Story - Page 23
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Duravi
United States1205 Posts
Day 9 has done a ton for this game, and I've seen Daily 100, he genuinely loves gaming, so it is hard to be so critical of him. These events need to wake up and see they don't need to pay someone a 20k appearance fee, there are plenty of good (and IMO at this point in time better) casters who will work for far less. I'm not advocating having players cast all the tournaments etc... I agree with Total Biscuit you need professional casters, and it sounds like most of them will work for reasonable rates. Sometimes I really wonder who is giving these tournaments advice about how much they should shell out to get some specific caster. When your paying an appearance fee larger than your prize pool to a caster there is something wrong with the business model. | ||
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Flamingo777
United States1190 Posts
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Duravi
United States1205 Posts
On January 05 2012 12:55 mcc wrote: This recent twitter complaining by HuK about players being underpaid is funny. Some guy basically asked him on twitter how do you recognize being underpaid and his answer indicated that deserved pay is determined by market forces. If it is so then casters get what they deserve already and players get exactly what they deserve. If you would want to determine deserved pay by some other criteria, the only reasonable way is to use utility to society and in that case all players AND casters are already overpaid as they should be earning less than a cleaning lady (I am slightly exaggerating, but not much). You cannot have a cake and eat it too. Either deserved pay is determined by market forces and then all complaints outside of salary negotiations are meaningless. Or deserved pay is based on some societal utility and then HuK should get 20000/year at best. Of course the whole twitter drama might be actually PR stunt to influence salary negotiations and then it is understandable  You can have a situation where people are being paid more than market forces should dictate when only a few companies do the payouts, and they all get their advice from similar place. I'm not saying this is in fact what is going on, but it does happen, just look at Hollywood. | ||
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Duravi
United States1205 Posts
On January 05 2012 14:58 Flamingo777 wrote: I think certain casters deserve all the money they get, namely Day[9], Artosis, Tasteless, and a few others not because of their experience per say, but because they are personalities. I'm not saying that their analytic knowledge of the game isn't needed, it is and I love it! I'm just saying that they should also get a little extra due to their personal traits! Isn't that why we all love the interactions between the players just as much as we love the wealth of knowledge celebrated by State of the Game? Although I have become increasingly annoyed with Day 9s casting I agree with you in that the onus is on the companies paying them. With more money going into casters than players they are clearly signaling they are in it for the short term, they are not trying to grow/sustain the player base (note I said players, not viewers, they obviously want those to grow). I don't (and shouldn't) expect the casters to turn down money being thrown their way. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On January 05 2012 14:59 Duravi wrote: You can have a situation where people are being paid more than market forces should dictate when only a few companies do the payouts, and they all get their advice from similar place. I'm not saying this is in fact what is going on, but it does happen, just look at Hollywood. Such distortions, if they persist for a long time, suggest that the model you base your prediction on what the market forces should dictate is flawed or too simplified. How do you know there is market for more companies and how do you know they use some kind of mysterious source of advice to decide caster's pay. I would expect they try to get casters they want and that will maximize their viewership and try to balance it out with the pay the caster requests. Standard market behaviour. I am looking at Hollywood and see market at work ? | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On January 05 2012 14:53 Duravi wrote: I used to love Day9. Watched the daily whenever I could. I can't put my finger on when it happened exactly, but in the last 6-8 months his casting style has changed to the point where with a few exceptions (he is ok with wheat) he is constantly interrupting or talking over his cocaster. His voice goes from whispering to shouting seemingly every other sentence, and the whole cult of Day 9 thing where fanboys come out of the woodwork to defend him for the slightest criticism from anyone is getting tiring. I agree 100% with what Idra said on ITG about a month ago. Day 9 has done a ton for this game, and I've seen Daily 100, he genuinely loves gaming, so it is hard to be so critical of him. These events need to wake up and see they don't need to pay someone a 20k appearance fee, there are plenty of good (and IMO at this point in time better) casters who will work for far less. I'm not advocating having players cast all the tournaments etc... I agree with Total Biscuit you need professional casters, and it sounds like most of them will work for reasonable rates. Sometimes I really wonder who is giving these tournaments advice about how much they should shell out to get some specific caster. When your paying an appearance fee larger than your prize pool to a caster there is something wrong with the business model. First why are we actually trusting the 20k number, it is rumour, might be true, might not. Anyway, why are you assuming that the events did not make the cost-benefit calculation already and found out it is actually worth it to pay that sum ? Your statement about there being casters better than Day9 is subjective, the only objective value from the point of view of the tournament is depending on the viewers they attract and their cost. And if Day9/Tastosis bring enough additional viewers to offset their prize why is anything wrong with the business model ? Unless you present detailed cost/benefit analysis all this is subjective and pointless. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On January 05 2012 15:01 Duravi wrote: Although I have become increasingly annoyed with Day 9s casting I agree with you in that the onus is on the companies paying them. With more money going into casters than players they are clearly signaling they are in it for the short term, they are not trying to grow/sustain the player base (note I said players, not viewers, they obviously want those to grow). I don't (and shouldn't) expect the casters to turn down money being thrown their way. That makes no sense. It is not a job of tournaments to directly support the growth of player base. Sponsors are there to do that. Even if you increased prize money using all the caster's salaries you would not achieve much in that area as it would be still far too little to do that. Tournaments support growth of the player base by creating and satisfying demand of viewers for players. And the best way to do that is to increase the numbers of viewers and it seems the companies think that specific casters are the way to go. Also I doubt they just offer them so much money, I think there is some negotiation where the caster states his demands. And tournaments seem to be ok with that. Again market at work. And if you do not like that, the onus is not on companies, but on you to instead watch tournaments where casters are paid less thus influencing the process in the only way you actually can (apart from convincing others to do the same). | ||
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ptrpb
Canada753 Posts
I mean you can have a tournament without casters, but you can't have a tournament without players. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On January 05 2012 16:38 ptrpb wrote: There is something fundamentally wrong with a caster making more than the first place winner in an event, especially when the caster's job is fully dependant on the player. I mean you can have a tournament without casters, but you can't have a tournament without players. You mean like worker in the hockey sticks factory in China having less than a hockey player ? | ||
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steff
United Kingdom40 Posts
On January 05 2012 12:36 EnderCraft wrote: Just stop. You are making a fool out of yourself. Your OPINION is that you prefer analytical casting. Your so called "forum goers" OPINION is that that they prefer analytical casting. So TB isn't your cup of tea. Why do you feel the need to get on a forum and continue to lay fallacy after fallacy towards a frickin caster who you barely know anything about like you are the king of England (apparently your word is law?) TB is a play-by-play caster. He doesn't claim to have top tier knowledge about the game. Why do so many people like you insist on coming into a thread about ANALYTICAL CASTING and derailing this thread into a spew of hateful comments towards a PLAY BY PLAY caster... Because TB himself came into the thread and started defending casters thats why, it was in direct response to his posting try reading the thread next time. | ||
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Linwelin
Ireland7554 Posts
On January 05 2012 21:23 steff wrote: Because TB himself came into the thread and started defending casters thats why, it was in direct response to his posting try reading the thread next time. So because TB is defending the casters, that means you're allowed to bash him? Nah I don't think so | ||
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TotalBiscuit
United Kingdom5437 Posts
On January 05 2012 12:44 ReignFayth wrote: wtf is a playbyplay caster... If you don't know basic sports commentary definitions, you probably aren't in a position to knowledgeably discuss commentary. There is something fundamentally wrong with a caster making more than the first place winner in an event, especially when the caster's job is fully dependant on the player. I mean you can have a tournament without casters, but you can't have a tournament without players. Common misconception, eSports would not exist in it's current form without casters. The money would not be there because the audience would not be there. eSports right now is very much reliant on casters and has been since beta, to bring in the audience required to justify the sponsorship dollars invested in the tournaments and provide the adequate return to ensure future investment continues. There is a synergy between players and casters that must exist for eSports to continue to function at the level it's at right now. The casual fans are what drives the scene forward, they outnumber the hardcore fans. Its a shame totalbiscuit is "championing" the caster and not some decent caster because if him being silver and not knowing anything about the games hes casting didn't ruin esports taking some money away from casters certainly wont either. It would be wise not to confuse a rabid world of warcraft fanbase for actually being a worthwhile good added value caster, most forum goers I know (from various areas) would rather mute the stream than listen to something you cast. Good casters add a lot of value to Sc2 but I agree the crap casters could get paid a whole lot less and have it distributed amongst the players, the less we reward the bottom tier of casters the better the entire experience will become for us all. You're too busy being a fucking idiot to have any idea what you're talking about and you probably shouldn't be pissing on the only caster who gives the vast majority of his earnings to the players if you don't want to seem like a colossal hypocrite. I do hope you attend an iSeries at some point, I'd like to see whether or not you'd have the balls to say that to my face. You are off to a stellar start on this forum, every post you've made his been dedicated to hating on me. You'll go far here. | ||
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Goibon
New Zealand8185 Posts
On January 05 2012 23:16 TotalBiscuit wrote: Common misconception, eSports would not exist in it's current form without casters. The money would not be there because the audience would not be there. eSports right now is very much reliant on casters and has been since beta, to bring in the audience required to justify the sponsorship dollars invested in the tournaments and provide the adequate return to ensure future investment continues. There is a synergy between players and casters that must exist for eSports to continue to The very idea that this might be true scares the shit out of me. It shouldn't be that way. It should be about the game and the players and the competition. People lifting trophies. People wanting to be like Huk. People cheering on their favourite player and Sponsors wanting to harness that emotion and hopefully discretionary dollar. But it's not. That's so depressing  I'm gonna stick my head in the sand. Don't mind me. I mute the majority of tournament streams nowadays anyway. | ||
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TotalBiscuit
United Kingdom5437 Posts
On January 05 2012 23:31 Goibon wrote: The very idea that this might be true scares the shit out of me. It shouldn't be that way. It should be about the game and the players and the competition. People lifting trophies. People wanting to be like Huk. People cheering on their favourite player and Sponsors wanting to harness that emotion and hopefully discretionary dollar. But it's not. That's so depressing I'm gonna stick my head in the sand. Don't mind me. I mute the majority of tournament streams nowadays anyway. No, it's not. It should be and eventually it will be, but right now, it's not. Players don't have large enough fanbases yet and considering the volatility of SC2 where a single game can knock a favourite out of a tournament entirely, the only constant you get is the casting team. Some casters do in fact, have larger fanbases than players, it's been this way from the very start. This same argument was had in beta about the importance of HD/Husky. | ||
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Naniwa
Sweden477 Posts
On January 06 2012 00:07 TotalBiscuit wrote: No, it's not. It should be and eventually it will be, but right now, it's not. Players don't have large enough fanbases yet and considering the volatility of SC2 where a single game can knock a favourite out of a tournament entirely, the only constant you get is the casting team. Some casters do in fact, have larger fanbases than players, it's been this way from the very start. This same argument was had in beta about the importance of HD/Husky. think the most sad part is that you dont actually have to be good to be a popular caster / ' succesful ' caster. while you havet o dedicate everything as a player. Most of the casters dont even know about the game more than to a silver league level. | ||
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GohgamX
Canada1096 Posts
So IMO, it depends on the individual that's casting and the audience that receives them. Different demographics have their own preferences. Some casters have personalities that are geared towards professionalism and growth of the industry and others simply prefer to joke and banter their way about with sub-par commentary. It absolutely helps if they are, or were a high level player but if they are articulate and can maintain logical analysis at a novice level, I for one am happy. The players are the real important factors and need to be recognized as such. Also, credit has to be given to the observers. Big props to the GOMtv observer... Love that guy lol. | ||
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TotalBiscuit
United Kingdom5437 Posts
On January 06 2012 00:20 Naniwa wrote: think the most sad part is that you dont actually have to be good to be a popular caster / ' succesful ' caster. while you havet o dedicate everything as a player. Most of the casters dont even know about the game more than to a silver league level. I'm not going to disagree with you on that. I exemplify what you've just described, I do SC2 as a part-time hobby, do events because it's fun as opposed to for the pay and play when I can be bothered to and when the game doesn't piss me off to the point where I'd rather stab myself in the kneecaps than queue for ladder one more time. You hear a lot of people talk about Day9 inspiring almost a cult following. It's not almost, it is exactly that and he's not the only one. In reality, an entire generation of online media personalities have done exactly the same thing. Quality of content isn't relevant right now, the person delivering the content is. People get attached to particular personalities to the point where it doesn't even matter what they say, they'll blindly follow it. It's dangerous and it's without question not a good thing for anyone but the broadcaster. Do we exploit it? Definitely, whether knowingly or otherwise. We reiterate catchphrases because it's beneficial to do so. We play up to the aspects of our character that we know the audience wants to see. Our knowledge level really isn't a factor because the people who really care about that don't have the influence to matter on a statistical level. This is just how things are right now. It should change, but it's not going to yet. There are still people flooding into the scene every day and they do so because of particular casters. Casters have always been the gateway to SC2 broadcast eSports, to the point where there was for the longest time this huge subset of the viewerbase that did nothing but watch HD and Husky. They never tuned into a live tournament, never watched a Day9 daily, they just got their content from those 2 channels. That is changing, more and more people are tuning into tournaments, watching VoDs depending on who is playing, not who is casting, but there the popularity of a tournament stream as well as it's live attendance (which is starting to become a factor in terms of selling tickets to larger events) are largely influenced by who is casting the event. The direction we are going in is a good one and gradually focus is shifting, there are already players such as yourself who are directly influencing how many people are watching the stream because you are playing. When your game is on, more people tune in. More and more players have that clout now, as opposed to say, Dreamhack Summer 2011 where IdrA vs MC got more views than the actual finals did. | ||
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karpo
Sweden1998 Posts
It's more like one guy with knowledge of all players, histories, stats, and strategy and and one guy with deeper "hands on" knowledge of strategies and mental states. In SC2 we kinda have to settle for average atm. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
On January 06 2012 00:34 karpo wrote: If i compare soccer commentary to SC2 they don't really match. Even the swedish commentators (small country) both the play by play caster and the expert have huge knowledge of the sport. It's not one guy who kinda shoots from the hip and one guy with actual game knowledge. It's more like one guy with knowledge of all players, histories, stats, and strategy and and one guy with deeper "hands on" knowledge of strategies and mental states. In SC2 we kinda have to settle for average atm. Dutch football commentary is awful, with just one person doing play-by-play, no analysis. I've often hoped they would have audio options where you could hear the sounds of the audience and the game, but mute the commentary, since the first just adds so much to the atmosphere. Back during the Warcraft 3 days, I would often download the most highly rated replays and watch through them, then have a look at the comments about that replay. It was fun, but I never really do it for Starcraft 2, I rely on casters to do analysis for me and if I'm in the mood for Starcraft 2 there's almost always a stream or tournament going on to watch. I'm not sure why that is, since I often don't really enjoy commentary even, maybe I just got used to it as background noise or so. I think maybe if Blizzard adds a system where you can actually watch the game in-game live (i.e. they have it so you can have infinite people in a game, just as spectators) then maybe a lot of people will watch more actively and look through the game themselves, instead of relying on someone. I don't know though, maybe I would, but I guess too many people like the E-sportsTV aspect of it, where you can just have it all be a passive thing you turn on and watch. And casters are very important to make that entertaining. | ||
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MasterJack
Canada215 Posts
On January 06 2012 00:20 Naniwa wrote: think the most sad part is that you dont actually have to be good to be a popular caster / ' succesful ' caster. while you havet o dedicate everything as a player. Most of the casters dont even know about the game more than to a silver league level. Yeah, but you still have to dedicate everything to be a popular caster, even if that dedication is not solely focused 100% on game knowledge. | ||
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