EPTI'm still a nobody in the Starcraft scene, but I'm lucky that some of the bigger name people are involved enough in the scene to have heard of me and are supportive of new talent. This blog is going to be a bit of a mix of thoughts for me that I've had floating around in my head for a bit about my journey so far as an aspiring commentator and where I want to go. To be honest, I'm writing this more for myself because I enjoy writing, though I'm often not the most eloquent writer. I feel like it helps clear my head and gives me more purpose with my decisions. Forgive me if I'm a bit long-winded at times and I hope I don't bore anyone reading this too much. A lot of this will be a stream of my thoughts because I honestly don't know where this is going to go.
Anyways, let's talk about Starcraft.
Why do you love Starcraft?
One of my favorite questions to ask people is why they love Starcraft. Some people seem to just love the game the most and it's what keeps drawing them in as they love to see progress being made in the strategy of it. Others love the community and actively participate in it. Some love the players themselves and the storylines around them. There are many more reasons and most don't get involved in Starcraft for just one.
About 4-5 years ago I started commentating Starcraft because I saw my CSL team at Purdue playing games and I thought they were awesome. I had some friends who I thought didn't get just why they were awesome so I asked our team's commentator, Awmaface, if he would let me co-cast.
I earnestly felt like the way my teammates(if I can call them that as someone who only played 1 CSL match) played expressed their personality through the game. Our korean protoss was cocky, and he played like it with fearless HuK-esque aggression and micro. Our cheesy zerg BobMoo was a hilarious troll and he loved doing weirdly timed pure speedling all-ins with +1 melee because he felt like it was the ultimate troll. BlitzDota always had a very carefree and playful attitude and his no hotkey, screw strategy let's wing-it mentality reflected that. Our Protoss Mokomi was a quiet and reserved but thoughtful guy, and he played a more reserved and macro oriented style.
These guys were all just master league players, but they had found this magical way to express who they were through the game. When I watched them play Starcraft, I didn't just see another protoss, zerg or terran. I saw my friends putting not just their pride or their play on the line. I saw them putting their whole selves and who they were out there as a statement saying "This is who I am, and winning this game is, in a weird way, a justification of that."
Way too dramatic? Probably. Not everyone will agree with me and I've been told that I sometimes overread the situations but that's really how I felt...and feel. The most beautiful thing I find in Starcraft is the synergy between the player and their play: an expression of themselves through the medium of the game. I love Starcraft because I love seeing this synergy come out in play and the story it creates when put in the context of another player's synergy.
North America
So those who do know me know that I'm pretty into the NA scene. Why do I care so much about the weakest of the three most commonly talked about scenes: Korea, Europe and NA(sorry Latin America, SEA and China)? It comes down to two reasons for me.
First of all, the logical reason. I think building up the NA scene is a long term play toward building up the other scenes. If North America becomes a vibrant scene for players, there's a lot of great opportunities for organizations and viewers in NA to take advantage of that, which will in turn create more opportunities for the other regions. I also believe in building a solid foundation, which is why I focused heavily on the semi-pro scene in North America. My objective with Breaking Out NA was to try and raise the average skill level of NA by bringing more semi-pro's to the pro level so that the NA pro's would have better practice partners. If NA eventually had a lot more players of a higher skill level, Europe would in turn grow through the heightened competition at events, and metagame progressions from a different environment. I still think this is the best way to build the scene, from the ground up, and base a lot of my decisions on this mentality.
The second reason is more emotional. I'm a North American, born and raised and I simply relate more to other North Americans. When I feel like I can relate to the player better, it's much easier for me to understand the kind of person they are. I can fill in a lot more of the blanks about a person because there tends to be more common ground in our culture and what we've experienced. Admittedly, not all those assumptions will be right but they'll certainly be more accurate than those from the other side of the world.
Why do I care about who they are?
To finally tie it back to my previous section, the most beautiful thing in Starcraft to me is the synergy of personality with playstyle. If it's easier for me to understand a player better, I feel like I can see that synergy better. Of course there were lots of Europeans like Stephano or Koreans like MC who had their personalities clearly on display and I loved them for that! People talk about how sometimes it felt like Stephano just did what he did in games because he felt like it....and that matched perfectly with his personality. He's a legend I will never forget not just because of his play or his personality but because the both of them paired so strongly together and it was beautiful to watch. The same thing goes with MC's in your face attitude. MC wasn't just in your face before the game with trash talk and ceremonies. He would be in your face the whole game as a constant reminder of why he earned himself the nickname BossToss. But I see a lot of this stuff in the North American players more clearly as I get to know some of them better.
Objectives in eSports
So I've focused on the NA scene pretty heavily for the reasons I've mentioned above, along with it simply being easier to work with the region I live in. But what do I hope to accomplish in eSports? What's my goal? What am I spending all of my free time and a so much of money trying to do?
I really don't talk about the finances of what I'm doing very often because I often am actively trying to combat the idea that I'm buying my way into eSports. It's not that I hate the thought that people would accuse me of it and discredit work that I've done. I genuinely don't want to see my own accomplishments and feel like any success I have is because I threw money at the problem and didn't work hard. For this reason I don't advertise that besides the events I run, I've also been trying to support some events others run because I don't want to do it for some e-penis competition and getting people to say I'm "saving eSports" or something. I've actually explicitly asked multiple organizers to not list me as someone who contributed money to their event.
My point not being that "hey look at me supporting all this stuff you didn't know I do!" Rather, I am clearly not in this for profit(who the hell is in eSports for that?), nor am I in this for simple name recognition and a pat on the back. So what am I doing all this for? I could say it's all entirely altruistic but realistically I could be doing a hell of a lot more good if I was putting this money toward an actual charity or something. There has to be some positive reinforcement I'm getting that keeps me coming back for more.
At WCS Toronto last year, one of the former Starcraft 2 community managers, Zoevia, asked me what my objectives were in Starcraft. In retrospect she may have just been asking what my short term projects were but it made me think anyways because I think I had coasted much further than I had ever intended to go in eSports and Starcraft on just the idea that "I really love it." I didn't have an achievable aspiration or goal I was shooting for besides the very very broad and generic ideas like "become a better commentator", "get bigger gigs if you can" and "grow the scene".
When I realized all this, I said something that I still agree with, but I regret saying. I told her I wasn't looking to go full time into eSports and that I would probably continue doing what I'm doing on the side. I think I actually rambled on a bit more but overall, I think I still agree with that core idea but for different reasons than the ones I listed. I don't think I could do a lot of the cool stuff I get to do if I went full time into eSports. I wouldn't be able to fund Breaking Out, or NA Ladder Heroes, or Challenge Wars, or contribute to any other events I want to support. I simply wouldn't have the income for it. And as much as I sometimes fantasize about being a full time commentator, I actually love my job as a software developer. I of course have my qualms but I really do enjoy it and it's not something I'm dying to get away from.
Haunting Questions
So this leaves me with two questions.
The first was, has any of my (very minimal) success I've had in eSports because I had the money to throw these events instead of slogging in the amateur caster pits like Nathanias, ZombieGrub, Rifkin, Apollo and many others did? Could I have done it without self-funding? I of course had many of my own challenges with working full time and coming home to cast events after a long days work but doesn't every aspiring commentator who isn't full time? This question still plagues me and I don't have the answer to it. It actually haunts me a bit to know that if I ever do find success in Starcraft, it may be tainted by the idea that I got to that position with money, not hard work.
And let me clarify something. I feel like I do work hard. I actually think as a commentator, I have some of the worst natural talent ever. But I feel like I have put in the time and effort to make up for that. But it stings to think that I'm more valuable for "effortlessly" putting money into the scene rather than the actual skills I've been working at for nearly 5 years.
The answer to this question still eludes me though. I honestly don't know and it frustrates me. It makes often times makes me feel like I don't belong in places I get to. I think most people don't know I went to the Community Summit before Blizzcon because I don't like to talk about it. I felt like I was out of place because I don't think I deserved to be there. I didn't feel like I could trust that I was invited there because of some merit I had earned through competence. I may have been given the opportunity to voice my opinions on things but I held back on a lot because I kept second guessing any of my thoughts in the company of titans like TotalBiscuit, Apollo, HuK, TakeTV, and others who had proven the value of their opinions because I didn't want to say something wrong and take away from their points. This is probably one of my biggest mental hurdles I need to overcome right now from a non-commentating perspective if I want to do more in Starcraft and eSports.
The second question I'm left trying to answer is what is my ultimate goal in eSports? I don't want to go full time, but I still want to grow. Am I content just being a community commentator that happens to run events? Do I want to cast a premier event?
Yea, I do want to commentate a premier event.
Today(or rather yesterday since it's rapidly approaching 3am for me) I think I latched onto this idea after a lot of thinking. I haven't had any clear objectives or goals for myself as a commentator and I think that's a big mistake on my part. I think some clear objectives for "career" progression(if you can call what I'm doing a career) would benefit me a lot and give me some clarity on what I should be doing.
I'm going to commentate a premier event.
What this will mean is I have to really start stepping up my game as a commentator. I'm lucky enough that I'm going to have the opportunity to cast a tiny portion of the upcoming NA LAN Cheesadelphia, as well as the event in Toronto, Kings of the North. These events are opportunities for me to knock it out of the park for my "caster resume", but also they're opportunities for me to learn as much as I can about doing live events. Having a big goal is all but useless if I don't have some intermediary steps to get there. I don't know what all those steps are but I know that these events are ways I can get closer to my goal while I figure out the rest. With hard work and some guidance, I think I can figure out the rest of the steps.
So why am I setting my goal on casting a premier event? I think I want to prove to myself that I can get to that level by working hard and being good enough to get there. It's similar to how I think a lot of people feel about wanting to hit grandmaster. You want to get there because you want to prove to yourself that you could.
Day[9] once said something along the lines of how Starcraft was a beautiful game because it didn't care about how much money you had, who your parents were, how many friends you had or anything. Your success was dependent on your skill, not your background. Casting isn't quite as clear cut, but I feel like this goal is about as close as I'm going to get with it. I think I'll know by the end of this road whether or not I was good enough based on my own merit.
And for now, that's enough to keep me motivated to get better.
Thanks for reading.
-Ravi "feardragon" Pareek
