Comment by crsv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crsv | Hacker News Reader

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An interesting thing that's happening right now with the release and rise of Apex Legends is seeing how these now stale numbers are already starting to move around in regards to the level of engagement that Fortnite now commands versus what it commanded only weeks ago.

The pace that the market is moving is pretty incredible in direct contrast to the landscape even just 5 years ago when MOBA's owned the world.

This in conjunction with other nimble, highly accessible entertainment experiences (Tiktok, HQ and its clones, etc) make for vast and extremely fickle landscape vying for attention. It's really fascinating to zoom out and watch it unfold.

Personally I'm just thrilled to see the level of production around eSports really kick off. Games that have been around for a decade plus now (CS:GO, Dota 2, Street Fighter) now have these incredibly high quality events and online coverage that for me have shifted my attention away from many traditional sports I used to watch.

Exciting times for sure.

I do think Esports is let down by bad production quality of the telecasts, for eg: Most Rocket League telecasts seem show most of the match from each players camera, quickly switching from one player to another, but showing the whole action from a roof-top or sky camera or atleast traditional football broadcast like camera would make it more watchable. Even with CSGO and Overwatch, similar problems, the game designers and sportscaster should promote such more viewer friendly production of telecasts.

Also most esports telecasts have too much fluff and too little gameplay, hours of pregame chats and pettifloggery for very short actual gameplay, they should take a hint from football(Soccer for Americans), esp EPL broadcasts, very less fluff.

I think the content would be richer if one could spectate the tournaments in-engine rather than watch them as video streams, atleast then viewers can take full potential of such telecasts, see things from any angle / perspective desired.

> Also most esports telecasts have too much fluff and too little gameplay, hours of pregame chats and pettifloggery for very short actual gameplay, they should take a hint from football(Soccer for Americans), esp EPL broadcasts, very less fluff.

With Football and Basketball, the rules determine that the game is `x` minutes long, but because people are adapting games like Rocket League which were built for 'short' 5 minute matches and then a player is on to the next round. Where you see most of the time, like with League of Legends' LCS is that they can string multiple matches right after another on the same day. There's plenty of pregame and postgame talk and fluff, but you get that with other sports as well.

A great example of Football having the pre game coverage is the Texas GameDay team, which will start broadcasts at 6:30 PM and end at 8:45 with the beginning of game coverage.

Disclaimer: I play Rocket League semi-professionally, and was previously a technical director for a Football team's live cast (radio, TV, livestream).

> but showing the whole action from a roof-top or sky camera or atleast traditional football broadcast like camera would make it more watchable

I'm quite sure this is very intentional with Rocket League broadcasts. There's even a "director cam" that Psyonix built for this purpose, and it is still used often. It's just that it's not as exciting or impressive when you're not seeing it from the player's view for whatever reason. Everything looks slower and you miss all the nuances of the pros' mechanics.

I bet football broadcasters would broadcast shots from the players' points of view if they could.

Rocket League hosts both high tier and low tier events. The production quality reflects this - their high tier events are very professional and have a completely different talent lineup than lower tier events, including the observer (camera man).

You want the production to kick off? There's nothing wrong with just airing the game, I don't need commercials and interspersed ads and huge breaks and player backstories and all this other fluff that comes with "production values". I like how technical the casters are now and not catering their commentary to lowest common denominator viewers, so someone who plays the game can actually learn something interesting. Besides, "production values" are literally just resource sinks anyway.

Wow I guess I am officially old now because I finally installed TikTok, and I would describe it as trivial and obnoxious rather than "nimble".

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