Ok so basically, was reading posts on trying to grow the whole Starcraft broadcast experience, especially to try to appeal to non players. We have seen improvements recently in my view, with things like reaction shots and instant replays.
However, as I see it all this is doing is improving the spectacle for people who are already familiar with the game of Starcraft and how it is played.
I've felt for a while that for non-gamers, or people not affiliated with the game of Starcraft do not struggle to understand the strategies or what the aim of the game is. When this is explained well by casters, or myself for example my friends/girlfriend get it pretty easily. There are sports at the recent Olympics like dressage which were painfully boring with pretty arcane rules, but yet people still watched (albeit due to the Olympic effect).
Anyhow, my point is this, it's not unfamiliarity with the game or units that puts non-gamers off. It comes down to this. For those who aren't particularly open minded I often get this response 'Oh well that's impressive and all, but he's just pressing some buttons, that's not demading'
As non-gamers are probably the last market that E-sports will eventually aim to conquer, this kind of response is one that needs to be addressed, and I believe it can be. My girlfriend has asked me questions when I'm watching streams or whatever at her house, and she can grasp the concepts of the game pretty easily, but she doesn't understand why the things I'm describing are impressive from a physical point of view.
Most other sports do not have this problem, as there isn't a two-way filter for their actions to be visible to viewers. Footballers kick a ball, and this is visible for example. Gamers are generally off-screen, inputting their actions into a computer, which is relayed to us viewers, but we don't get to see enough of what the gamers are doing at their end.
When my girlfriend requested I show her how Starcraft was actually play, she stood up and took notice, she said she'd never realised how fast and interesting it was to watch a player in action, and it was this response that prompted me to make the thread.
Take this for example : Donraegu in action
Surely shots of players really pushing themselves mechanically, can be interspersed more into games. More use of first-person perspectives can accomplish this as well.
We have improved in the sense that players are now visible often in games, and the emotive aspect of the broadcast spectacle. Now we need to show not just games that showcase impressive play, but also WHY these guys are pro-gamers and that it's not as simple as 'hitting a view buttons'
There are sports at the recent Olympics like dressage which were painfully boring with pretty arcane rules, but yet people still watched (albeit due to the Olympic effect).
Problem is for general population, it's programmed as: Sports: Good Video Game: Bad Which makes sense at least from exercise / fitness point of view.
The problem is that this also translate to: Watch Sports: Good Watch Video Game: Bad Even though there is not much fundamental differences between the two.
There are sports at the recent Olympics like dressage which were painfully boring with pretty arcane rules, but yet people still watched (albeit due to the Olympic effect).
Still easier to understand than Sc2.
Not really, all the artistic disciplines are pretty much like this. The actual actions are pretty clear, and you know roughly what the judges are looking for, but what actually constitutes 'good' or 'bad' is entirely unclear unless the commentator (usually an ex-competitor) explains it dive-by-dive or whatever.
The exception to that is when you do something like this
Many tournaments, including the ongoing IEM, show the player's face in the bottom left corner. If you tune into Day9's stream right now, you can see it's not very interesting. I'd prefer if the camera was on their hands instead.
On August 17 2012 00:33 Ljas wrote: Many tournaments, including the ongoing IEM, show the player's face in the bottom left corner. If you tune into Day9's stream right now, you can see it's not very interesting. I'd prefer if the camera was on their hands instead.
Yeah that's exactly what I'm getting at. The face and reaction cams are great, and add a bit more emotive weight to things, but hand cams are really underused to give you a sense that these guys are working hard. I've seen a bit of them I think it was IPL3 but that's an element of production I'd love to see expanded
If Starcraft 2 wants to attract more viewers, something larger would probably have to be done in order to attract more attention since the game itself is already harder than others to get into. One possibility could be if Blizzard would pump more money into their tournament so that it attracts more attention. I mean, Riot's tournament for LoL has a $2 million prize pool.
There are problems with that. Especially with booths, it's hard to set up the cameras correctly (not a lot of room inside so you'd have to make them much bigger or you get reflections if you film from outside). Watching the faces alone is not that interesting, so a camera behind them or above them which captures their hands would be more intriguing, although the face shots are absolutely necessary for these very few emotion shots you really want. The biggest issue would be the lighting, I doubt you can get really good lighting at the players without distracting them.
However, I still think there's huge potential in production value. We need like 3 cameras per player and a heart monitor. Possibly a team-listen-in for team leagues. Many, many things that haven't been done enough yet.
The ideal way of doing it would be to keep the camera on the player's hands, and leave it for the director to notice when it's worth showing the facecam.
Another thing that could be improved are the casters. Stacraft has a small dictionary's worth of terms that are hebrew for most non-players. While there's always stuff that just needs to be learned (took me years to get what offside meant in ice hockey), I think the play-by-play casters could keep it a bit more simple and leave the analytical stuff to their partners. TB and Apollo have been a fairly noob-friendly duo, for example.
I actually find shots of the players distracting to the game. When you are watching some other kind of spectator sport, it only pans outside of the actual game when there's nothing going on. I would suppose it would be appropriate to perhaps start the game with an outside look at the game and the players, but if someone commits to some really early aggression, it could completely mess up the production.
I just get irritated whenever streams like MLG or IEM show the fans or show the players typing on their keyboards during the actual gameplay.
On August 17 2012 00:50 Butterednuts wrote: I actually find shots of the players distracting to the game. When you are watching some other kind of spectator sport, it only pans outside of the actual game when there's nothing going on.
The problem is, the stuff that happens on-screen is separate from what the players are doing. That's exactly what the OP was talking about.
On August 17 2012 00:50 Butterednuts wrote: I actually find shots of the players distracting to the game. When you are watching some other kind of spectator sport, it only pans outside of the actual game when there's nothing going on.
The problem is, the stuff that happens on-screen is separate from what the players are doing. That's exactly what the OP was talking about.
A bit more pizazz in the broadcasts would really help step it up, at least in my view. I haven't seen a massive amount of old BW Starleague footage, but they've got all sorts of cutaways, especially in the parts of the game where not much is going on. For example I've seen at the start of the game before action is happening they'll have two cutaways showing the first-person view of each of the players
As long as it isn't overdone to miss engagements and important things, I don't really see what the downside would be of moving in this direction. MLG had the right idea with the second observer cutaways and first-person views, albeit on separate streams.
EPT
