In Defense of Commentators

Any regular readers of my blog will automatically assume from this title that i'm about to embark on a sarcastic rant about how shitty esports casters are.  Well, sorry to disappoint you...

It's true, i do think that the vast, vast majoriy of esports commentators are overrated, talentless and noisy, but more and more i've realised that a lot of my disdain is based on things that aren't really their fault.  Watching the Casting Archon fall to pieces from exhaustion at Dreamhack made me almost feel sorry for people paid to talk about computer games for a living.  No, but seriously, 14 hours a day is as close to hard work as esports can be and I do have some sympathy.

More than that, though, I've realised that leagues just leave these guys out to dry all too often.  These guys aren't raconteurs, and they sure as hell aren't stand-up comedians, but MLG and GSL in particular just leave them to fill in the gaps between matches.  It's not really any surprise that their their pre/post-game banter is so infuriatingly tedious - as fascinating as Starcraft is, there is only so much you can say about an average game.

The opening ten minutes of the NASL finals (ignoring the HoN, because, really...) brought this home in the perfect way.  Gretorp is erm... (I'm trying to be generous to casters here, help me out) but watching him and Orb do Gollum impressions to fill the dead air was probably the nadir of esports commentary, and that's among some really stiff competition.  I couldn't believe what I was watching, and sure, you'd hope they could come up with something better, but the blame surely lies with NASL for putting them out there with no help.

NASL isn't the only league that puts its commentators in such a difficult position, it was merely the most recent and most horrific example.  These organisations have come on leaps and bounds in the past 18 months, but in terms of production value, they really need to step up their game.  Filling the between-game void is a problem that only IPL has really addressed.  GSL has tried in the past with the player bios they used to air, but more need to follow and improve upon IGN's lead.  Hearing about Catspajamas' gaming history - however highly I rate him as a caster - really only exacerbates the problem.  Still, it's better than nothing, and alongside the Top 10 countdowns, it's a decent platform for leagues to build on.

Why I Haven't Published an Article in Months

Dear ESFI,

It's not that I don't want to write articles for your site, it's just that the League of Legends desktop icon is so much prettier than the Word icon.

Sincerest apologies


Me.

Why MLG's Flawed Format is Important

Slowly but surely, my blog roll is growing.  I find that a lot of the stuff you can't read about on Team Liquid or any other major esports site gets quietly discussed elsewhere.  They're so much more inspiring than the usual "Player X wins Tournament Y, wasn't everything amazing?!"  This particular entry in my blog was inspired Marc Onforio of FXO.  I'm a bit late to the party, but it seems he caught a bit of flak for criticising MLG's abomination of a tournament format.

Sometimes you wonder if people are beyond help; how anyone except MLG can defend the MLG format is beyond me.  But since I was thinking of writing a blog about why I'm so hard on MLG, this is actually perfect timing.

Ever since I got involved with esports, I wanted it to live up to its name and be an actual sport.  Legitimacy is everything, as far as I'm concerned.  But what MLG appears to want is a show.  Sporting integrity be damned if 200,000 people tune in to the livestream appears to be their modus operandi.  Now, all the little psuedo-economists that come out of the woodwork for this kind of debate will hasten to point out that stream numbers are necessary in order to turn a profit.  Well, that's alright then, is it?  If the only thing people are interested in is making money there is basically no argument to be had.  It's a bit like trying to debate  with staunch christians: if your only answer is "God did it" we aren't going to get anywhere.

I get it, okay.  Making money is necessary.  But if it comes at the cost of turning esports into WWE, the price is too high.

So how does all this affect the format?  I flip-flop between two stances on the MLG system.  Firstly, it could just be an honest mistake, poorly thought out.  Secondly, it could be a cynical effort to protect the stars.  Naniwa was a God-send for MLG earlier this year, when he won a tournament after coming all the way from the open bracket.  In the eys of someone with poor logic, he proved that the system worked, because the creme rose to the top.  Never mind the fact that he had to win more than twice the number of games that his opponent did in order tog et there.  But in a deliciously ironic twist, he finished 2nd at last week's seasonal finals with a so-so record of 7-6.  If the sytem worked, 7-6 would not net you $25,000.  As Marc pointed out, Nestea went 20-5 and made nothing.  I don't see how anyone can reasonably argue that the MLG system isn't flawed.

I don't want to talk too much about the extended series - I think everyone knows how dumb that is by now - but it's another brick in the imbalanced wall.  People argue that winning should give you an advantage later in the season/tournament.  Well, maybe, but isn't getting to the next round of the tournament advantageous enough?  Simply avoiding the lower bracket or straight up elimination has always been a big enough advantage for other sporting events; "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" springs to mind.

MLG often appears obsessed with numbers: stream numbers, live attendance figures etc.  Well, take a look at the numbers Marc posted last weekend and try to defend them.  MLG's tournament format is undeniably imbalanced and unfair.  Even the vaguely sensible arguments attempt to justify the imbalance, rather than deny it ("it's what the fans want" - I did say vaguely sensible).

With all the positive changes in prize money expected next year, I sincerely hope that they have a real good look at the tournament structure.

Taking off the Kiddy Gloves

I woke up this morning to some interesting logs in the ESFI Skype chat.  You know when you get that feeling that the world is sort of revolving around you... For example, on the bus, yesterday, I was thinking about the frustration I feel towards esports and how much of that comes from the coverage.  Today, I woke up and found that some of the ESFI staff had been discussing something integral to that: are we too nice?

To anyone that's read this blog before, you'll immediately assume that my answer is yes.  Well, screw you, smartass.  But the reason you're right is because I almost feel like I have to overcompensate for the lack of introspection in the community at large.  Contrary to appearances, I don't actually hate everything, but I don't feel like anyone else is asking questions of people like MLG (why do Boxer's travel expenses cost more than the first prize at an MLG tournament?)

Every sport has its sacred cows, but esports seems like it has an inordinate amount.  More than once I've been "told off" for criticising commentators.  To be fair, I do write about them an awful lot, but "who are you to criticize Apollo?" speaks volumes about people's attitude towards these guys.  God forbid I ever slate Day9 or Tastosis (oh, wait...).  These people are placed on a pedestal and deemed untouchable by the masses.  Yet, actually, they're largely the best of a bad bunch.  I think that phrase could honestly be applied to a raft of things in esports.

People seem to tolerate and even celebrate medicority in esports.  A large part of esports is made up as we go along and so it's expected that things aren't perfect, I understand that.  But does that mean we should just accept that this is the way it will always be?  Should we accept commentators yelling incoherently because they lack the vocabulary to say something interesting?  Should we accept horrible tournament formats because, well... MLG wants to make sure the fan favourites make it to the final day, I guess?  Esports is constantly evolving and improving, but without criticism and questioning, that evolution will grind to a halt.

There has to be a middle ground between my cynical whinging and everyone else's head-burying.  What frustrates me even more is that I know that people are aware of these problems.  I'm not some kind of prophet who sees flaws that others don't, it's just that I'm one of the few who are too stupid/honest to ignore them.  I hate to sound so full of myself - there are others, like Keeker and Marc Onforio - but the dissenting voices are strictly limited to personal blogs like ours.

If you're not convinced, go back and look at Midway's interview with ESFI.  His biggest regret about GotFrag (an absolutely perfect example of my 'best of a bad bunch' theory, by the way) was that they didn't go after CPL when they started shafting people.  If there was another league doing similarly shady things, would anyone step up, or would the mistakes of history be repeated?  I look at the position MLG is currently in, and I wonder who would dare to risk being banned from their events if it came to it.

Better Living Through esports Music

It's a truism that music affects people's lives.  But for me, music goes hand-in-hand with esports for a whole host of reasons.  Firstly, I got into esports at the most important time in my music-listening "career," 16-18.  My earliest memories of Counter-Strike are soundtracked by music I was just discovering through friends at the time: Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Tool et al.

But in the early 2000's, there was an even more direct link: gaming movies.  I discovered what I'd consider more sophisticated music (Soundgarden being a perfect example) through social channels, but esports movies gave me Nightwish, Hammerfall and Pendulum.  Of course, I had to sift through an awful lot of shitty Nu Metal to get there, but I like to think it was worth it.

When I began watching CS movies, they featured almost solely Nu Metal and Symphonic/Fantasy Metal.  Anyone who doesn't know "Ice Queen" by Within Temptation is surely an esports noob.  Hell, i didn't even like the eoL movie, but it introduced me to a whole body of work I would never have come across otherwise.  In fact, it's quite an ironic trend that shitty movies introduced me to better music.  If anyone remembers the Ocrana multi-gaming movie, they probably also remember "My Secret People" by Dover - a Spanish band who are fairly obscure outside of their homeland.

Then, of course, there was the fantastic Annihilation series, which introduced me to Guano Apes - well, kinda.  I knew of them, but never bothered to listen to much of their stuff until I realised how fucking awesome "Open Your Eyes" is.

But alongside Within Temptation, Nightwish were probably the best find.  Their somewhat pretentious mix of operatic vocals and melodic metal, combined with 2nd-rate fantasy novel lyrics, is a lot better than the sum of its parts.  They were almost unavoidable in early 2000's CS movies, but, unlike the other, shittier mainstay (Linkin Park), I was actually glad of it.  Not only because I like the music, but it was very appropriate.  Go back and watch Neo - The One, or Art to Frag, and tell me the music doesn't work.

By the mid norties (eww, ewww, i can't believe I just wrote that "word"), I was playing WoW and my tastes were about ready to broaden again.  A lot of WoW pvp movies made use of the same fast rock and metal i was used to, but as editing skills evolved past flashing when something exciting happened, electronic music became a natural fit.  Good editing became a way to hide average skills and the music was a huge part of that.  Check out Eviscerape 2 for how I discovered Pendulum.  WoW players will probably recognise that he isn't even that good of a rogue, but that movie blew me away when I first saw it.

Of course, Pendulum is so big and popular now that I would probably have discovered them anyway.  But the remix on that movie led me down a long and winding road into trance - a genre I had always viewed with some disdain.

So where should I go with this blog now?  It was a fairly self-indulgent stream-of-conciousness, so I guess i'll just leave it here.  I would've been no good as a script writer for kids cartoons ("the moral of the story is, um..."), but I would've appreciated the theme music, at least.

That Which we Call a Journalist...

...probably wouldn't smell very sweet since we're all nerds.

My fellow ESFI writer, Ted Ottey posted a column about the question of whether or not journalists exist inside esports.  I've been around long enough to see plenty of these articles (and write one or two myself) and opinions change alongside perception over time, but I'm inclined to think that we have largely missed the point.

Whatever way you choose to define "journalist" it's clear that the standards in esports are much lower than in other sports.  That goes for pretty much everything in esports, but journalism is especially vulnerable because it has generally been volunteer work, done by those who love the game.  Precious few stick around for more than a couple of years, and the reason is simple: the rewards aren't there.  It was another ESFI writer, Derek Staley, who hit the nail on the head with this one.  There are a handful of talented writers (and a large percentage of them write for ESFI) but they have no real reason to write except when they feel the need to.

My own most productive period was definitely at SK - the one time in my esports career where I was paid for my work.  There was a bit more to it than that, but the reality is that one simply cannot devote too much time to something that offers so little reward.  It's no surprise that so many esports writers (or journalists, whatever you prefer) are harsh on commentators: yes, a lot of them are fucking awful, but they also get paid for being awful.  The best esports writers in the business - at least outside of Korea - earn little-to-nothing.


Back to the topic; I think there are journalists out there but people treat that title with too much prestige.  They seem to confuse it with Investigative Journalism, of which there is a real lack.  But investigative journalism is something that relies even more on funding because it requires a lot more effort.  What came up in the twitter conversation about Ted's article is that in Korea things are a bit different... but, actually, they're very much the same.

Orangemilkis put forward the idea that Korean journalists are the real deal, but the evidence he presented didn't really support that idea.  They suffer from another of the problems that faces the West too, one that has plagued journalism since it first began.  Korean journalists are very close to the teams, which means they get the stories quickly, but this obviously makes for a massive conflict of interest.  How can you be expected to neutrally judge people who are relatively close friends? (Orange cited journalists going on holiday with teams).  Obviously that is a rhetorical question, and I'm sure many of us would love the opportunity to go on holiday with pro gamers.

But the flip side of that coin is that we can't expect to be kept in the know if we write negatively.  Imagine a situation where EG is running out of money and needs to cut some of its stars.  If ESFI broke that news before EG could spin it, they would likely never allow us to interview their players again.  In Korea, it seems the only difference is that the journalists are even more personally invested in this situation, since they literally profit from it.  Is that a fair price to pay for being a bit quicker with news than their Western counterparts?  That one's not so rhetorical and I'll leave it alone for now, but I lean towards "not really."

After that slightly meandering post, the point is that we have plenty of journalists of varying quality.  What we don't have are investigative journalists, and neither does Korea, apparently.  The risks are currently far greater than the rewards, and will remain so until someone works out a way to better monetise esports coverage.  The sad fact is that the press currently needs the teams a lot more than they need us.

Sandwich of Happiness

A lot of my post on here are bitter, cynical and/or twisted.  To try and redress the balance and bring a little joy to the world, I thought I'd give the much-loved "Sandwich Method" a try.  For the uninducted, the idea is that you offer a compliment, then criticism in the middle, followed by another compliment - compliments being the bread, as it were.  So, lets give it a try, shall we?  I'll start with a list of things i don't like, and try to come up with good points to counteract all the negativity.

TotalBiscuit

Good: Is named after a very obscure character in the Discwold novels
Bad: Is a very bad commentator who has practically no redeeming features as a figurehead in esports.
Good: Is unable to enter American soil, meaning he is effectively barred from 75% of major tournaments.

SK Gaming
Good: Has had some of the most successful esports teams in history.
Bad: Pretty much everything else.
Good: The coat they gave me at IEM 2010 is very warm.

MLG
Good: Puts on SC2 tournaments for fans to enjoy.
Bad: Pretty much everything else.
Good: Their stream adverts are a bit less annoying than they used to be.

Tastosis
Good: Know a lot about Starcraft
Bad: Talk an awful load of bollocks during GSL matches
Good: Erm... they like animals?

Ah, I can just feel my soul getting lighter already.  Is that a rainbow outside?  Not likely, since it's 21:40 in the middle of October, but you get the idea.