Following on from the Kotaku debate and the assertion from many in the relevant circles that the e-sports “product” (a word used by twats to describe absolutely anything when speaking purely in marketing terms) had actually never been stronger. Sure, some female hack might think it’s terminally uncool like some kind of cancer of the mojo but what did she know? And look, here’s some photographs of some relatively normal people watching Starcraft 2 and they don’t have hunches or anything. So there – E-sports 1, people who dare to maybe speculate that it’s not popular for a reason 0.
Still, I’m meant to be on the side of the righteous and hysterical e-sports champions, the people that have so much invested in this that it makes absolutely no sense to criticise it at all. Fuck, I’m one of those people, living in a state of arrested development thanks to my ability to shit out hilarious columns such as this and deliver LAN coverage that actually makes it sound more exciting than the sleep deprived nightmare, trapped in a warehouse with nothing but a cloud of B.O. for company that it actually is. God bless you e-sports. You’ve been good to me.
The reality is the e-sports product, or if we’re feeling even more twattish “experience”, just isn’t one at the moment that comes across as cool and as well all know “cool” is pretty much the most important thing when it comes to selling anything to the masses. Take cigarettes. They supposedly kill you but they’re cool. People buy them in their droves and smoke themselves to death with yellow-toothed grins on their cool little faces. By contrast cod liver oil supplements, with proven health benefits in a number of areas, have no place outside of your nan’s medicine cabinet.
Yes, cool sells… It can even sell death and death in itself sells. Fucking genius. Here’s some suggestions on how we could make e-sports cool.
LOSE THE NICKNAMES
This, for me, would be the biggest step forward we could all possibly make. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you’re some pub scrub content to while away the hours playing with a name like “-=HeAdShOtMoNsTeR=-” that’s entirely up to you. The minute we cross the threshold from the playground though and into the realm of “e-sports” you should be an athlete without a nickname, even if it is more cool than simply being known as John Smith.
In fact, the only people for whom it is acceptable to have nicknames of this sort are Brazilian footballers. This works twofold as not only are they inherently cool with their tales of learning to play football barefoot, practicing with pebbles on their local beach, their names are a fucking mouthful. Edison “Edson” Arantes do Nascimento or Pele? If he was known solely by the former the pub bores that argue he was the greatest ever – simply on his prolific strike rate if nothing else – wouldn’t bother as they probably couldn’t even pronounce it.
Even when there’s a bit of imagination used in picking the name – you know, something a bit more complex than the council estate method of simply adding a “y” to the end of your surname – e-sports nicknames still generally come out as a bit cringeworthy. Can you really root for someone calling themselves TORNADOTONI without feeling faintly ridiculous?
[center][small]I’m sure even he;d agree nicknames are fucking stupid[/small][/center]
I know the immediate counter-argument is something like UFC where everyone seems to have some sort of nickname but to be fair they earn theirs. And when it comes to discussing their legacy everyone knows exactly what their full name is… For example the argument as to who was the better heavyweight will never sound like “The Last Emperor was ten times the fighter The Pit Bull was” but rather people would refer directly to Emelianenko or Arlovski by name. In e-sports, most of the time, people can’t name the players that they follow apart from their online pseudonyms and that is uncool.
Nicknames are for people who still have treehouses.
RESPECT YOUR AUDIENCE
It’s probably fair to say that if you’re giving e-sports a chance, with no prior understanding of it, then you must be a fairly open minded sort of person. Intelligent, educated, capable of seeing the merits of all things… And you decide to force a load of swill into their brains via their eyes.
Do you think these types of people want to see some untrained page three model, or a players girlfriend, blunder through a series of interviews that sound like a lobotomy victim having their first conversation with a speak and spell? Do you think they want to hear two commentators with aspirations to be z-list celebrities mumble their way through a series of in-jokes to show how fucking hilarious they are? Do you think they want to see a series of self congratulatory promotional videos every five minutes in between broadcasts in case it was thought for a moment that try and portray the company involved as being the ONLY one in the e-sports landscape? What about a series of ill advised comedy sequences that are about as funny as those dickheads down the union bar that quote the entire works of Monty Python without ever truly realising that about only 2% of it is actually funny.
[center][small]Hard to care when you can’t really see what’s going on… Meh[/small][/center]
Yeah, they’re going to be hooked aren’t they? You see there’s something staggeringly awkward about all of this when it plays out on the screen. The guys look nervous around the models, the models are clueless, the commentators are thinking about how it can be a stepping stone to something else and are too busy trying to shout the wildest shit possible rather than deliver good, solid commentary. There’s little to attract the outside, making it feel like a clique that not only can they never be part of but one they would never want to be part of, like the Warhammer society in the first year of university, all dickless dice rollers and greasy girls.
Definitely play to the strengths in any broadcast. Those are promos that a neutral can understand, clear and concise information on the player, informative and explanatory commentary, substance over eye candy, and a self contained seriousness that says we’re not some novelty joke. You do all that, maybe some of these people will stick around.
SPEND MORE TIME WITH THE FANS
It’s usually a bad idea but what people need to see more of isn’t the players, who in a lot of cases come across as having only just escaped from a basement that day having been fed a steady diet of salt water and fish–heads. While the few charismatic are milked to death for content by the media weaning machine, wouldn’t it be nice to actually show to a wider audience that there’s nothing abnormal about following e-sports.
I mean, I’m not talking about fake TV audiences here, given bullhorns and rattles and told to cheer every time the warm-up guy comes out and puts his arms in the air. I’m talking about the genuine enthusiasts, that travel across the world to follow their game, the people who stay up all night drinking and take sick days off work to catch a final being shown on the other side of the world.
And why not? Anything remotely “fanatical” (from where the word “fan” of course dervies) about gaming is immediately linked to a school shooting, or a starved baby, or something else as terrible as it is rare. The reality is often the “fans” make for a lot more palatable stories than the players themselves, who can be forgiven a little given that the price for success is sacrificing some of that “normality” me and you might take for granted. Plus, anyone with an eye for a story can find something amidst the fans that is worth talking about.
All I’m saying is if the pissheads with pies brigade can get their own little segments on Match of The Day 2, or even be invited to do an alternate commentary, in soccer, why are we only showing biased crowd shots? Showing that people give a shit is good and it might just convince a few others to give a shit too.
COMPULSORY CHARM LESSONS FOR ALL PLAYERS AND PUNDITS
OK, so you’ve just seen someone completely do the unthinkable. Like, three ridiculous twitch reaction headshots to make a 1v3 clutch with $50,000 on the line, or something else exciting from those other games you pretend to understand, for that briefest of moments you think of the player who achieved them as being truly exceptional. For that moment you’re happy to concede that maybe, just maybe, they are stars. Then they get up and open their mouths…
Good lord? Was that a joke he just made? I’m not sure… I can hear sounds but not words. Almost every moment in front of the camera is tantamount to car-crash TV and you think maybe they’d have some sort of anecdote prepared. No, it’s generally the same answer you’ve heard before delivered in some sludgy monotone: “Well, we knew we would win because we were better than them and we have been in practice for a long time together so we knew that we had this in the bag but they played a good game and we knew we would win… Do I thank the sponsors now?”
It’s either that, or as ESL have found out to their horror on a few occasions, the complete failure to grasp when the media are trying to hype something. Like that housemate that won’t fuck off when you’ve brought a bird back and inadvertently cock blocks you by trying to be polite and friendly, watching players be slow on the uptake can be excruciating:
“So, these guys are your big rivals then?”
Obviously they’re not. Obviously no-one really has big rivals in this game bar maybe a few exceptions. What is a big rival in e-sports anyway? Someone who maybe beat you a few times, or someone you used to play with… It’s not like they injured you and almost ended your career. It’s not the trailer for MACHETE. But fuck it, it’s a good yarn and might set a few pulses racing. It might hook a bit of interest, so go along with it. If you hear a question like this the alarm bells should be ringing at a million DINGS an hour. What do we get instead?
“Well, no not really… We’re a mix and they’re a mix so we just don’t care.”
Oh, for fucks sake.
LET THE GAMES DO THE TALKING
Ultimately, no matter what you say about games, it’s a growth industry and one that has become increasingly culturally relevant. If I can watch the latest episode of AMC’s Breaking Bad (yes, watch it if you haven’t) and see a scene where people are shovelling crank up their nose and discussing what is the best zombie game of all time, then it’s fair to say that maybe, somewhere out there, life is imitating art.
Of course, don’t do drugs and stuff, but you know, we all love games when you get down to it. And gaming isn’t this big generational divide that we all think it is. For me it might well be Donkey Kong, for my grandad it was dominos, and for you whippersnappers it’s Dance Factory. So while it might seem strange at first, when you sit it down and explain it, relating it to other games, everyone can get there in the end.
A lot of the time I think there’s too much emphasis on the stuff around the games, yet the games themselves are – a lot of the time – inherently cool. Kids will instantly understand if something good is happening on the screen. They don’t need in-screen shots of tongue out concentration, or a sudden cut away to get footage of some guy punching the air. Just show the game while it’s being played. You can get the rest of the shit in the pauses.
MAKE SOME SPECTATOR FRIENDLY GAMES
I mean, seriously… Who makes games these days without this even being taken into consideration (Sorry DICE)? You’d have to be fucking dumb given the potential for streaming and youtube video edited replays… Oh, what’s that? You are dumb. OK, well carry on making games that YOU – the developers – say you want to have e-sports potential without even thinking about how people can watch them.
The way some games are made it takes a real lover of the respective title to actually stick through and watch it. I mean, how much better would a HoNcast be if there was some option that allowed a massive zoomed out overview of the map, a means to follow the action and see what was about to unfold? Instead it’s click, click, click, the camera zipping around all over the place like Muhammed Ali’s dinner and… Fuck it. It’s too much.
A built in spectator mode, with an overly built into the spec only GUI and a variety of camera angles to choose from should be a standard feature built into any wannabe e-sports title now. If it isn’t, how can you show the game off in all its glory? And if you can’t do that, how can anyone make it appear cool?
It might only be a five point agenda but, God, e-sports needs something and this can’t be much to ask. Even with all this e-sports might never be “cool” but wouldn’t it just be nice if it wasn’t so fucking amateurish?