Dying of Exposure (the SC2 cancer in me)

Hey, it's been a while - almost a month, in fact.

I did go on holiday for a week, but mostly i've given up trying to make myself like SC2.  Not the game itself, you understand, but the itinerary.  I decided to break my silence in order to discuss why i've become so disaffected by the whole thing, so be warned: i'll try to keep the whining to a minimum, but there will likely be some.

When Strarcraft II beta came along and essentially killed-off Warcraft III, i was fairly ambivilent.  WC3 was and still is my favourite esports game of all time, albeit through some heavily rose-tinted glasses now, but SC2 represented a fresh new dawn and a way of uniting esports fans.  Largely, it has lived up to the hype.  From the very beginning it seemed like everyone stepped up a gear and the whole thing became a self-fulfilling prophecy, with tournament organisers and content-creators trying to keep up with and outdo one another.  The sheer amount of content - visual, textual and audio - dwarfed into insignificange that of communities i'd been involved in previously.

It was fantastic in the true sense of the word - almost impossible to take in.  In the beginning, i found myself with tournament streams on in the background almost daily and being disappointed when i couldn't find at least a Zotac or Go4 to listen to while i did other things.  Then GSL started up and my problems were solved.  It's kind of ironic that after years of bad sleeping caused by computer addiction, an esports league actually had me getting up at a reasonable hour to watch MC's nexus-cancels and Nestea's miraculous comebacks.

It seemed like it was too good to be true, but like some genie-filled fairy tale, the moral was that you should be careful what you wish for.  Watching every game every day soon became listening to them in the background while i played WoW and then noticing that, actually, the commentators are mostly terrible and just yell "ohhhhh!" a lot.

Honestly, that's when the cancer began, but it took a long time to become malignant.  People talk about an inner circle jerk in esports nowadays.  I'm fully behind that idea.  SC2 improved a great many things, but at the price of turning the vast majority of the community into sycophantic acolytes of a few, largely undeserving, people.  To slaughter all of SC2's sacred cows would take far too long for a reasonable length blog, but you can probably name most of them if you try hard enough.

As a postmodern man, i realise that at least part of my problem here is undoubtedly jealousy, so perhaps we should move on.

The fact is that the SC2 scene really has felt more and more like a cancer to me for the past few months.  There is so much i hate about it - real, genuine hate - that it's gotten harder and harder to enjoy the good bits.  Originally, this blog was going to be some kind of list of the things i dislike, explained bit-by-bit, but i realised it would take too long and wouldn't really help anything.  Besides, anyone who reads this blog regularly will probably know what most of them are.

So, instead, i've tried to back away from SC2 altogether.  The physical part has been surprisingly easy.  One of SC2's biggest problems is definitely overexposure.  I haven't properly watched an SC2 tournament in months and i realised that i don't even miss it very much.  I didn't force myself, it just sort of happened.  As much as i dislike MLG, their payperview model has actually been pretty beneficial for me: can't watch, won't watch.  I still feel a pang in my stomach when, for example, ESFI is covered with MLG coverage and only a few snippets of Dreamhack, but i suspect that will never go away.

Where am i going with all this?  Good question.  I guess it helps to explain why my content output since i left SK has been so minimal.  I have felt more and more smothered by the Starcraft II community.  It's largely in my head, i realise that, but when all i want to do is slate beloved public figures, it's probably best for my health if i keep it away from caster-worshipping forum commentators.  That part is pretty easy, since they won't look much further than the TL forums (if that sounds bitter, well, yep).  I don't intend to stop writing about esports - on the contrary, i applied for a job with Cadred (please vote for me, by the way).  I will probably even write about SC2 again in the future, but i need to break it down into smaller pieces so i can find the good parts again.

Sorry if this blog reads a bit schizophrenically, but it's quite appropriate.  My issues with writing about SC2 feel so massive and hard to truly grasp that a rambling, stream-of-conciousness piece with little or no direction is somewhat cathartic.  Maybe i should've just gone with the list method after all.

Justice?

Without trying to brag, one thing i've always prided myself on is my ability to disagree with someone without having to automatically dislike them or insult them.  Being able to see two sides of a story is important to a journalist, but it is something that i've always felt should be important to any intelligent person.

Not so, says the internet.

Ever since my columns on SK got me some amount of noteriety, this is something i've tried to come to terms with.  The general principal goes something like this: "i don't agree with what you wrote, ergo you're a fucking idiot."  To me, that's always seemed kind of... unfair.

When i had a little dig at DJWheat for being a bit self-righteous a while ago, i was at pains to explain how i respect his contribution to esports.  I was probably bending the truth slightly since i'm no huge fan of his, but you have to have some respect for a person who's been relevant in esports for so long.  Did he bother to do me the same courtesy in his criticism?  Of course not.  He accused me of "throwing him under the bus for years."  I guess those "news" posts (and i use the term very loosely) i made on SK advertising his Lo3 show really offended him, since i never mentioned him in any of my other content.

Thatt might seem like just one small, unimportant anecdote, but this post was actually inspired by Lurppis running his mouth on a subject of which he is clearly ignorant.  When the pillars of our community (Lord, save us!) can be so narrow minded, it sets a pretty poor example for everyone else.  There will always be trolls; the annonymity of the internet is well enough discussed that i don't need to bother going into that.  But if people who are  respected in the community can show a bit of perspective and maturity, we might at least minimise the number of people who think it's okay to lack those qualities.

Dog Bites man

Drama today, as fights broke out all over the internet.  Members of one esports community, feeling threatened by another, larger, esports community made numerous ill-informed ranting forum posts.

THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF ESPORTS, PEOPLE!

Another Cool Quote

This was take from someone's forum signature a long time ago... on WCReplays i think:

"The difference between a lucky noob and a pro, is that a lucky noob gets out of situations a pro would never get into."

A Useful Cosbyism

Why i think mainstream is a bad direction for esports to go in is difficult to explain - mostly because it get angry and confused.  But i think this is a fairly good attempt at explaining it, by the one and only Bill Cosby (posted by Aaron Forscythe of Wizards of the Coast):

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

IRONY OVERWHELMING

Okay, so, i decided i should watch one of the seeming millions of esports panel shows.  The Executives seemed like it could be interesting, and so far - apart from Slasher's life story - it has been.  But now they're talking about independence and objectivity in journalism... on a show hosted by the manager of Complexity, on Complexity's Twitch channel.  Ho hum.

They're making some good points, but i just felt the need to point out the irony in case anyone missed it.

Carry on.

So, about this Idra IEM thing

It's very, very difficult to have sympathy for Idra.  Despite being a middling professional gamer, his stream earns him more money that pretty much anyone else in the business.  He acts like an asshole and people love him for it - one of the quirks of being in an industry targetted at 14-25 year olds.  So, when he complains about the hotel in Hannover not being very good you'll forgive me if i don't shed too many tears.

But whether he's a pampered individual or the start of something more worrisome, he does kind of have a point.  It's difficult for me to criticise ESL, i must admit, but their umbilical attachment to CeBIT has been an issue for many years.  The celebrity culture attached to SC2 has simply brought it into sharper focus, and a lot of the new esports crowd obviously weren't aware of it until now.  Well, at least Idra has brought it to their attention, i suppose.

The problem is that ESL's model pretty much dictates that they have to be at CeBIT.  Why is being attached to one of the biggest computer expos a problem?  Well, Hannover is a pretty unassuming town, as anyone who has been there will tell you.  When something like CeBIT rolls into town they don't really have room for the thousands of extra people.  It's traditional that people rent out their spare bedrooms and hostels do a roaring trade.  The two times i attended, i stayed in what was surely a former brothel and some kind of ex-Hitler Youth camp, both of which were upwards of 30 minutes from the event.

I didn't mind overmuch, but it's obviously far from ideal.  What makes it worse is that IEM isn't the only show in town any more.  For a couple of years they only had to compete with MLG and nobody really complained too much because there already wasn't much money to go round and WoW players sure as hell didn't have the presence that SC2's stars do.  Much as i dislike MLG, they seem to have stepped up their game on this front (too much, in Boxer's case).  ESL hasn't, and, while they remain attached to CeBIT, can't.

The danger of pampering players is a real one - just look at other sports.  But there is a middle ground to be found, and it's in everyone's best interests if players look forward to a tournament, rather than dreading it.