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Last weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to moderate another eSports panel at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytical conference in Boston. The conference itself is founded by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, who is a huge fan of eSports himself. He helped put on the first eSports panel last year with Sundance, Alex Garfield, Day9, Mike Morhaime, and Tosspot moderating.
This year Morey himself was a panelist, along with Morhaime and Sundance again, and TwitchTV COO Kevin Lin stepping in, with myself as the moderator. The panel was focused on the growth of the past year, where we currently stand, and what the future may hold on a variety of different topics from each a developer, league, team, and technology/streaming standpoint. I tried my best to get the player's POV (who may be the most important), but there were no pro's on the panel.
We only had an hour to go through questions, so I apologize that many things were left out, and if I had to jump topics a bit too much.
I'll be taking the time tonight to get a timestamped breakdown of what's discussed.
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I wish there was more time so that the topic transitions were smoother and so that the Q&A would have actually manifested.
Oh well.
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Around the 10 minute mark: MM says that Blizzard has a role to play in promoting e-sports and the sc2 universe  Good. GOOD. DO IT!
He's also not as good an orator as I would have expected. Oh well.
(The) Slasher, excellent moderating!
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Holy....this is awesome, didn't know about it at all :O
MIT Sloan Sports Analytical Conference...that just sounds awesome. So awesome that Sloan would actually have a conference to discuss esports and what have you. So sexy.
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Looks so cool! Really nice job :D
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Daryl Morey <3 GM for my Rockets
For anyone who doesn't know, as far as General Managers for professional teams go, Daryl Morey is a regarded as a genius.
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dude that is so fucking awesome that the houston rockets GM is a fan of esports
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Not surprised that Daryl Morey is interested in e-sports (he's one of the most forward thinking GMs in all of mainstream US sports in terms of analytics and technology). Cool talk!
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Hmmm. Pretty cool. Slasher moderating :/
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Even more respect for Daryl Morey! One of the best GM in the NBA!! =)
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On March 09 2013 12:04 kochanfe wrote:
Hmmm. Pretty cool. Slasher moderating :/
What can I do for you, sir?
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On March 09 2013 11:06 KanoCoke wrote:
I wish there was more time so that the topic transitions were smoother and so that the Q&A would have actually manifested.
Oh well.
Yeah this was the most difficult part. I originally had 30-40 questions which we then cut down after talking amongst ourselves to about 10-15. And as you can see, even that is too many to cover a wide range of topics. Plus I'd rather ask followup questions to points made while in discussion rather than just go down the list.
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On March 09 2013 12:10 Slasher wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 12:04 kochanfe wrote:
Hmmm. Pretty cool. Slasher moderating :/ What can I do for you, sir?
Change your name to "The Slasher", p[le]ase!
But no, it was kinda cool. Definitely wish you guys had more time. *shrug*
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Sweet! I love to see this kind of discussion take place
It lends a sense of legitimacy to the entire scene.
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The main things I got from this:
- we are still growing (doubling) and expanding demographically
- we can already compete with some sports and their TV numbers; moreover, they are aging and narrowing, whereas we are broadening and setting the future
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Well done (The) Slasher! It seemed like the panelists were able to answer each question separately, without a lot of rambling on and misguided discussion. I felt like each of the panelists was able to bring a unique perspective, and had a different answer for each question.
I'd love to see a panel of all the major developers in eSports. I want to see when Capcom became aware of serious competition in Japan and then in the US. I want to hear the same question put to iD, Valve, Blizzard, and Riot. I want to know if they set out to create games that could be played over such an incredibly long skill curve with no apparent skill ceiling, and I want to know how that has influenced their development of current and future games that are eSports. (yes I just called Capcom fighting games eSports)
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This was really fun to watch, gonna share this video with my skeptical friends / family !
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On March 09 2013 15:10 Kreggar wrote:
Well done (The) Slasher! It seemed like the panelists were able to answer each question separately, without a lot of rambling on and misguided discussion. I felt like each of the panelists was able to bring a unique perspective, and had a different answer for each question.
I'd love to see a panel of all the major developers in eSports. I want to see when Capcom became aware of serious competition in Japan and then in the US. I want to hear the same question put to iD, Valve, Blizzard, and Riot. I want to know if they set out to create games that could be played over such an incredibly long skill curve with no apparent skill ceiling, and I want to know how that has influenced their development of current and future games that are eSports. (yes I just called Capcom fighting games eSports)
Dunno, probably when they saw all the Evolution tournaments in the USA and the Super Battle Opera ones in Japan. When they noticed people were still playing 10 year old games in a competitive and undying scene or something like that. That was around 2007 or so 'cause they developed SF4 in 2008, iirc.
I'd like to know how everyone feels about DRM and how they can manage it while not killing eSportS. I'd also like to know how that host girl got into the MIT, lol.
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Sundance is very, very good at talking about this to people who don't speak our language. This is great
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That hour went by really fast. Good stuff, sundance really took hold of the discussion.
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EPT
