What I learned from watching six hours of Starcraft

http://areallybadidea.com/what-i-learned-from-watching-six-hours-of-sta

by randall • 15 years ago

43 48 15 years ago

hartror3• 15 years ago

The usual "Don't dig for gold, sell shovels" type thing and in this case the analogy holds up very well.

The SC2 players are digging for gold and only a few of them make a big strike and the casters and distributors are the ones making all the cash selling shovels.

kjr5• 15 years ago

yeah but how much? has a market actually taken form or are those casters who are making money nothing more then novelty?

Charuru6• 15 years ago

Rumors puts popular casters at around 250K a year, just from youtube revenue.

3pt14159• 15 years ago

The top caster (H to the husky, husky) has a lambo and wasn't rich prior to casting esports.

baddox2• 15 years ago

One could argue that, while being a successful professional gamer is hard and rare, it's probably much harder and rarer to be a successful caster of professional games. Casters also have to tackle a broader range of skills: they have to remain very current with the game they cast (and they're generally expected to be above-mediocre players themselves), they have to understand the production and distribution process (audio, screen capturing, uploading to Youtube/other video site, etc.), and most of all, they have to get and maintain fans.

ohashi2• 15 years ago

Many of the casters are skilled players themselves. Artosis (one of the commentators for GSL) was quite highly ranked. I believe Tasteless and his brother Day9 are as well. What's interesting to me is Husky, who I don't think is anywhere near their skill has the largest audience.

I've got friends who don't play starcraft who watch husky and love it like it's any other sport. So I definitely agree there is a lot of skills involved and even different target markets. The hardcore players like the best player/casters. There appears to be an even larger casual/not playing at all audience that enjoys the sheer entertainment value of esports.

Charuru6• 15 years ago

Well yeah, if the goal is to make money, trying to become a top player is probably not the smartest path.

But like for anything else, the real top players are doing it primarily because they really love the game.

kjr5• 15 years ago

I predict e-sports to develop almost identical to american sports. Thus, before any real money can be made (for players and distributors/producers) elements of american sports need to be echoed: big money backers (owners), betting, and a more structured and and centralized league system.

The problem is e-sports is still so immature for the above three things, both technically (cheating is a major issue) and in popularity (e-sports has yet to prove exiting to the uninformed spectator).

mcantor5• 15 years ago

I wasn't aware that cheating is such a huge deal in pro gaming. Source?

Also, it occurs to me that cheating has been a big deal in regular sports, too...! ;-) In fact, I would say the same about interest levels. I found football excruciating until I learned the rules.

Charuru6• 15 years ago

Cheating is not a major issue. I follow StarCraft and have never heard of an instance of actual cheating. Match throwing to earn money on betting against yourself was a major scandal 2 seasons ago though.

kjr5• 15 years ago

In pro gaming not so much. What I mean here is "casual" pro gaming. This is a big issue in FPS games. Smaller player driven leagues have a hard time weeding out cheaters in games like counterstrike and other fps's. This leads into the other point as well. Football is just jammed down peoples throats so much that even watching TV/movies you probably got a decent understanding of it. Without casual pro gaming it is hard to gain interest in e-sports at a high level.

amalcon• 15 years ago

It's a pretty big deal in high-level sports, too. Ask Jose Canseco (the baseball player who most famously used steroids), Bill Belichick (the infamous American football locker-room videotaper), and He Kexin (the almost-certainly-underage Chinese gymnast from 2008).

kevin_morrill• 15 years ago

Search for "saViOr starcraft cheating" and you'll find an example of scandal among high level players. Not saying this is common, but it does happen.

Charuru6• 15 years ago

>Thus, before any real money can be made (for players and distributors/producers) elements of american sports need to be echoed: big money backers (owners), betting, and a more structured and and centralized league system. >The problem is e-sports is still so immature for the above three things, both technically (cheating is a major issue) and in popularity (e-sports has yet to prove exiting to the uninformed spectator).

Just to be clear, you're talking about the west right. In Korea these things are all already in place. Huge sponsors throwing huge events, salaried teams making a lot of money, a large spectator community, 2 tv channels, proleague.

tieTYT• 15 years ago

2 major hurdles:

-Competitive video games are very complex compared to sports

-Sequels come out every 2 years or so, making you have to relearn the rules

For example, do you understand what crazy thing happened here? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeM0rH_4ung

richcollins2• 15 years ago

Blizzard makes the most money as the copyright holder. They can shut down any of the casters streams whenever they so desire.

mcantor5• 15 years ago

Maybe I'm having a brain fart, but... under what legal auspice could Blizzard force them to shut down the streams?

richcollins2• 15 years ago

Copyright law. They already sued Kespa into submission. I'm guessing at some point that they will anoint a company with exclusive rights to broadcast SC2 and start suing everyone else.

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/3171

kjr5• 15 years ago

Wouldn't it be better if Blizzard employed them? Set up internal league systems and actually embraced e-sports as a revenue generating area? I think the next evolution of e-sports will be a big name company actually doing the above. Problem is it is pretty risky to do. Games with huge fanbases and legacies of e-sports like starcraft/counterstrike are probably the only ones were it would work right out of the gate.

hartror3• 15 years ago

Really? I would have thought it is fair use, but I guess no Machinima producers have true tested the law in this regard? Certainly Blizzard attempts to control the use through the TOU and restrict derivative content to non-commercial use only.

baddox2• 15 years ago

In the USA, fair use legal precedent has mostly been superseded by laws such as the DMCA. I don't agree with it, but that's the legal situation we're in these days.

mcantor5• 15 years ago

But it's not Machinima... it's just a broadcast of their product being used exactly as it is intended. Wouldn't that be like a baseball bat manufacturer telling someone to take videos of their Little League game off of YouTube?

robryan• 15 years ago

I'd imagine the top players in Korea would get marketing and endorsement deals?

SebMortelmans• 15 years ago

God Startupcraft looks soo awesome, almost considering flying to USA to attend :P

iwwr2• 15 years ago

The original Starcraft (Broodwar) is much more enjoyable to watch, though SC2 may be more interesting to play.

mcantor5• 15 years ago

With both games, I am a novice at best; but I'd be interested to hear why you find SC:BW more interesting to spectate.

johnswamps2• 15 years ago

I'm not the parent, but lots of people complain that the SC2 maps are too small. You can quickly get to your opponents base on small maps which making early agression powerful, resulting in a lot of short games. If you've watched the last two GSLs, you probably noticed a lot of < 10 minute games (e.g lots of 2 rax all-in/pressure builds). By contrast, SC:BW games tend to be a lot longer and more exciting where you get to see many if not all expansions on the map taken, more strategy when it comes to unit composition besides just "well you weren't ready for my early game push so I just won easily", map control becomes essential, harassment, etc.

cachemoney• 15 years ago

It requires more dexterity.

It's been around for much longer, so people have had a ton of time to optimize. Every really high level game feels balanced on a knife's edge. It's like chess, or a nadal-federer match. Clear openings, give and take, and you're waiting for the mistake or brilliant play that defines the match.

In SC2, we're seeing a huge variety of strategies still, and it's more common to win by choosing a strategy that just beats your opponent, a la paper rock sissors.

iwwr2• 15 years ago

I'm not sure, SC2 doesn't have the same charm, too many flashy effects.

BTW, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktzWQlR8D6Y

ddkrone• 15 years ago

It's not like being the players and participating in tournaments is such a hard gig. They are often sponsored by various technology or clothing companies and get to do what they really enjoy. The casters also get to do what they enjoy but they serve a much larger audience of people that fall between casual and professional player so that's one of the reasons they make more money.

leelin• 15 years ago

The analogy to music distributors is a little off.

The SC2 replay casters are adding significant value to the content, in addition to sifting through what content is worthy of casting. They need to know where in the map to pan the camera, explain what is going on, decide which parts to fast-forward and pause, and probably many other nuances experienced SC2 players enjoy.

Casters are doing 2-3 jobs in one: pick one or two interesting replays each day out of many submitted, do all the work of a sports commentator, and then do all the work of a video editor (for non-live casts).

In other words, even if I knew a replay was a good one to watch, I'd prefer to watch it casted. On the other hand, a great song or a great sports game is probably fine on its own, but rarely a raw movie reel.

Zeelar• 15 years ago

I'm more inclined to have casters in their own category instead of players vs. distributors. As leelin mentioned, casters add their own value by adding spit and polish to the games, which increases the reach on the games itself. Distribution platforms tend to not have any hands in the content but benefit more from getting a good "flow" of content through their network. As for monetization though, in every industry, there are outliers in each category that make a lot more money but in general, (successful) distribution platforms generate the most nominal revenues and frequently the people adding polish don't. The more skill/polish added though, the higher the premium it seems.

jamii• 15 years ago

Indeed, watching good casters is a good way to master a new game. Delivering insight into the reasons behind the players actions and tactics is a valuable service.

lukeschlather• 15 years ago

Actually, I think it's a bit strange that this isn't the case with conventional sports. When it comes right down to it, what makes sports interesting is less the absolute skill of the competitors and rather the relative skill. So a high school match is no less interesting than a professional match.

There's obviously a part of everyone that believes skill should be rewarded, but really what sports spectators are looking for is entertainment value - and completely unskilled players are just as capable of creating something entertaining to watch as skilled players.

Distributors on the other hand are judged precisely by how entertaining the product they deliver is, so their skill and effort should have a much more obvious correlation to their earnings. It therefore makes sense that it's more profitable than playing, since only specific people are any good at turning games into an entertaining mass-market product.

whathappenedto• 15 years ago

There's actually been academic research papers written about spectating Starcraft: http://jeffhuang.com/Final_StarcraftSpectator_CHI11.pdf

There's a number of types of people who watch Starcraft, and a number of things Starcraft does really well to get a large audience of viewers (hiding/showing certain game information).

gnubardt• 15 years ago

HD's starcraft videos are really enjoyable. His commentary seems pretty professional (don't watch sports so have no basis for comparison) and reveals elements of play I was totally unaware of before.

http://www.youtube.com/user/HDstarcraft

What I learned from watching six hours of Starcraft

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