EPTEdit 2: I included some notable posts at the bottom, although I suggest to everyone interested in this topic to read the whole thread.
Hi,
I'd like to address a few issues i see with the progress of esports in Germany, especially concerning the style of casting and the language involved.
Before I begin with my argument, I would like to state that I want to see esports (specifically Starcraft 2) succeed in the non-english speaking countries. I do not know how this is handled by casters in other countries than Germany but I believe that the issues may have a mutual origin being the commonly accepted language in the gaming community, english.
Ok, lets get to the statement:
The language used by most (if not all) german casters (a hybrid of german and english) acts as a major hindrance for people to get attracted to esports and therefore the success of esports on a larger scale in Germany.
Let me elaborate a bit on the language part:
(This got quite big)
If you are a common gamer and also speak a bit of english, you will probably prefer to play games in their original language (same applies with watching movies or series). Doing this and watching tournaments and casts on english, you will familiarize yourself with the english vocabulary used.
If you now engage in a discussion with someone in german you will have the problem that you can't name the units and abilities and that you are accustomed to the english terms for pretty much everything happening in the game. What would happen now is a stuttering conversation, since you would have to translate all the english words over to german. This may take quite a long time depending on the word.
Just to show an example: "choke point" should be translated to "Engpass". I actually had to look that up myself.
Now, since the guy you're talking to is usually also exposed to a similar amount of english content and the discussion would be impractical and seem silly if you always thought for a few seconds before going on, you just do the easy thing and use the english term. You are now able to finish the discussion. The problem is that you just invented a fuckton of new words to accustom to the german flow of speech and that someone listening to your conversation will be fucking weirded out and not understand a thing you are saying.
Of course this doesn't matter to the common gamer.
Now, I wanted to talk about the development of esports in Germany in relation to this new language.
The moment this language becomes awkward is when you try to explain something about the game to someone who is actually playing games on german or, in the "extreme" case, doesn't play any games and/or does not speak any english.
While the gamer may actually incorporate the "Denglish" words into his language, the "normal" guy will probably ask you to talk in german to him or just give you the nerdstamp.
What I want to see is successful esport-events in Germany, with a big audience. The people currently doing the casting in german unintentionally stop this from happening by alienating anyone that does not speak their artificial language. If nothing changes about this, the german scene will likely stagnate at the point where it is now.
I am really interested in the opinion of other people on this , so please tell me what you think.
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Note:
Of course I could be wrong with this. It could very well be that we will see huge televised tournaments casted in germany, casted in "Denglish". However, I neither see that happening nor would I personally watch something like that.
Response edit #1 (some examples):
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On February 12 2011 04:39 Zocat wrote:
I therefore dont think it's a big issue when casters use the English unit names / jargon.
I do dislike forced expressions, which can be normally expressed in German ("er retreated nun" vs "he retreats" vs "er zieht sich zurück"; "er forced nun vikings" "he forces vikings" "er zwingt ihn zu vikings").
I therefore dont think it's a big issue when casters use the English unit names / jargon.
I do dislike forced expressions, which can be normally expressed in German ("er retreated nun" vs "he retreats" vs "er zieht sich zurück"; "er forced nun vikings" "he forces vikings" "er zwingt ihn zu vikings").
Response edit #2 (clarification):
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One small thing I'd like to clarify: I agree that the use of some technical terms can probably not be avoided. What I do criticize is the overusage of such terms and the fusion of german and english words and grammar.
Maybe a little thought experiment might help you understand what I mean:
Imagine that you have a Starcraft 2 event with a guaranteed 1 million people that will watch from the beginning. Those people do not know Starcraft 2 and do not speak english.
How would you present the event to keep them watching?
Maybe a little thought experiment might help you understand what I mean:
Imagine that you have a Starcraft 2 event with a guaranteed 1 million people that will watch from the beginning. Those people do not know Starcraft 2 and do not speak english.
How would you present the event to keep them watching?
Response edit #3 (awesome visualization):
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On February 12 2011 21:55 Rabiator wrote:
Let me try to explain better by giving an example:
You are a nerd (probably) and thus most likely love
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Eq_it-na_pizza-margherita_sep2005_sml.jpg/800px-Eq_it-na_pizza-margherita_sep2005_sml.jpg)
Since you live in germany you might have encountered
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Wiener-Schnitzel02.jpg/800px-Wiener-Schnitzel02.jpg)
But do you think a combination of both (a "Schnitzelpizza") is good? Personally I think it is an abomination and I would like to apologize to all the Italians out there for any germans who actually cook, sell and eat these things. Just take half of one of your own "national foods" and then put that on a pizza and check is you like the thought of it.
I have nothing against english, I have nothing against german. I just hate mixing them up, because that means the person doing it isnt able to switch between the two and will - most likely - always have problems with either of them. You really hear from some germans that they are translating sentences word by word into english and that sounds totally awful, because you would need to have a different order of words in that sentence.
Personally I would love to have more original versions of movies in our television, simply because they have a much better sound quality. Even subtitles hurt more than they help because they distract from the stuff going on on the screen. I am a big Jane Austen fan and there are a lot of good BBC movies of her books (1). The german translations are very very horrible though and full of mistakes in their translations an sometimes even saying the complete opposite at important parts of the dialogue. (1) No idea about the quality of the translation for Hollywood movies, because they are usually terribly bad in comparison to the BBC ones.
Let me try to explain better by giving an example:
You are a nerd (probably) and thus most likely love
Since you live in germany you might have encountered
But do you think a combination of both (a "Schnitzelpizza") is good? Personally I think it is an abomination and I would like to apologize to all the Italians out there for any germans who actually cook, sell and eat these things. Just take half of one of your own "national foods" and then put that on a pizza and check is you like the thought of it.
I have nothing against english, I have nothing against german. I just hate mixing them up, because that means the person doing it isnt able to switch between the two and will - most likely - always have problems with either of them. You really hear from some germans that they are translating sentences word by word into english and that sounds totally awful, because you would need to have a different order of words in that sentence.
Personally I would love to have more original versions of movies in our television, simply because they have a much better sound quality. Even subtitles hurt more than they help because they distract from the stuff going on on the screen. I am a big Jane Austen fan and there are a lot of good BBC movies of her books (1). The german translations are very very horrible though and full of mistakes in their translations an sometimes even saying the complete opposite at important parts of the dialogue. (1) No idea about the quality of the translation for Hollywood movies, because they are usually terribly bad in comparison to the BBC ones.
Response edit #4 (some numbers from Assembly):
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On February 12 2011 22:36 Zocat wrote:
I think it may be appropiate to throw some numbers around.
Assembly is on atm, 2.30pm in Germany (so almost no NA watchers):
Shoutcraft (English): 1750 viewers
glhf 1 (English): 4900 viewers
glhf 2 (English): 600 viewers
itzMorglum (Polish): 720 viewers
pararin (Finnish): 520 viewers
Khaldor (German): 6300 viewers
So we have almost as many people watching the German stream, compared to the English streams. Even when some German people prefer watching the English casts (ie. myself & friends).
So there is definitely an audience for German casts which will chose German casts over English ones.
So "we dont need German casters, they should cast English" or "people should just watch English streams, no need German streams" seems just wrong.
I think it may be appropiate to throw some numbers around.
Assembly is on atm, 2.30pm in Germany (so almost no NA watchers):
Shoutcraft (English): 1750 viewers
glhf 1 (English): 4900 viewers
glhf 2 (English): 600 viewers
itzMorglum (Polish): 720 viewers
pararin (Finnish): 520 viewers
Khaldor (German): 6300 viewers
So we have almost as many people watching the German stream, compared to the English streams. Even when some German people prefer watching the English casts (ie. myself & friends).
So there is definitely an audience for German casts which will chose German casts over English ones.
So "we dont need German casters, they should cast English" or "people should just watch English streams, no need German streams" seems just wrong.
I'd like to mention here that Totalbiscuit (Shoutcraft) had trouble getting into games and that the glhf casters had some technical difficulties. Also it was very early in America at the time these numbers were posted.
Short update on the viewer numbers going into game 3 of the finals of Assembly:
itzMorglum(polish) - 436
Khaldor(german) - 6088
TheBeardTV(english) - 895
glhf(english) - 7365
The numbers are taken directly from the streams, the tab on teamliquid seems to show incorrect numbers
peak of the german stream at about 10k
On February 13 2011 07:13 chumppi wrote:
Yup, glhf.tv had 9,5k + thebeard.tv 1k(same stream) at the Huk vs. morrow semifinal match.
Yup, glhf.tv had 9,5k + thebeard.tv 1k(same stream) at the Huk vs. morrow semifinal match.
Response edit #5 (elaboration on the cultural context):
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On February 12 2011 14:21 Vod.kaholic wrote:
I think we have to look at this problem within a certain context.
Imagine for a second that there were no SC2 scene anywhere except Germany, but the German scene were rather big. SC2 is still an English-language game and all the unit and building names are of English origin, but all the vocabulary that arises for casting and such is then purely German. This was clearly the case in Korea, where they still used Korean-ized versions of the English names but developed/adopted Korea vocabulary to describe the strategies and actions. The thing Korea also had going for it is that it wasn't influenced by the foreign scene very much (I don't really know, I could be wrong) in terms of casting.
When you look at Germany though, it is entering into a much more integrated global scene where the biggest casters (HD, Husky, Day9, tastosis etc.) cast in English and can reach a very wide audience among educated, bilingual European gamers. The reason the German scene has problems effectively developing its own vocabulary is because of the "cultural" weight that casters from other scenes are bringing to bear on the yet-undeveloped German scene.
As other posters have pointed out with the Khaldor vs. HomerJ issue, German casters haven't set their OWN model for casting, they're trying to emulate what the foreigners do. There simply hasn't been enough time or space between the German and the larger English-speaking scene for the former to go through a process of natural growth and adaptation - it's stifled by the weight of the foreign scene.
I think we have to look at this problem within a certain context.
Imagine for a second that there were no SC2 scene anywhere except Germany, but the German scene were rather big. SC2 is still an English-language game and all the unit and building names are of English origin, but all the vocabulary that arises for casting and such is then purely German. This was clearly the case in Korea, where they still used Korean-ized versions of the English names but developed/adopted Korea vocabulary to describe the strategies and actions. The thing Korea also had going for it is that it wasn't influenced by the foreign scene very much (I don't really know, I could be wrong) in terms of casting.
When you look at Germany though, it is entering into a much more integrated global scene where the biggest casters (HD, Husky, Day9, tastosis etc.) cast in English and can reach a very wide audience among educated, bilingual European gamers. The reason the German scene has problems effectively developing its own vocabulary is because of the "cultural" weight that casters from other scenes are bringing to bear on the yet-undeveloped German scene.
As other posters have pointed out with the Khaldor vs. HomerJ issue, German casters haven't set their OWN model for casting, they're trying to emulate what the foreigners do. There simply hasn't been enough time or space between the German and the larger English-speaking scene for the former to go through a process of natural growth and adaptation - it's stifled by the weight of the foreign scene.
Response edit #6 (One of the many posts mentioning the accessibility for non-german speaking viewers - which is a very interesting though ironic branch of the discussion, possibly a little bit offtopic)
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On February 13 2011 07:56 Mr.Brightside wrote:
Not sure if this is relevant but I actually preferred to watch the German casting because it was more exciting and they didn't have a player score bar covering the control groups (which really frustrated me in the english cast since I am currently trying to work on my control groups and I want to see what the pros are using). I am actually an English speaker living in Germany and I only understand very basic words, I think the way that the Germans are currently casting is like a reversal of this situation (although a lot of Germans have a good grasp of English), since the game is pretty new they are both trying not to alienate the German speakers by speaking too much English and slowly introducing English terms to the German esports community (making it easier for them to understand on an international level). Whether this is intentional or not I don't know but I think the casting will continue to evolve to be a more fluent "Denglish", easier to understand for both English and German speakers that wish to follow German esports events.
Not sure if this is relevant but I actually preferred to watch the German casting because it was more exciting and they didn't have a player score bar covering the control groups (which really frustrated me in the english cast since I am currently trying to work on my control groups and I want to see what the pros are using). I am actually an English speaker living in Germany and I only understand very basic words, I think the way that the Germans are currently casting is like a reversal of this situation (although a lot of Germans have a good grasp of English), since the game is pretty new they are both trying not to alienate the German speakers by speaking too much English and slowly introducing English terms to the German esports community (making it easier for them to understand on an international level). Whether this is intentional or not I don't know but I think the casting will continue to evolve to be a more fluent "Denglish", easier to understand for both English and German speakers that wish to follow German esports events.
