What I learned from watching six hours of Starcraft
areallybadidea.com
areallybadidea.com
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.
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.
He really looks like he's having fun.
Of all popular casters out there, he is the least professional and least insightful.
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.
But like for anything else, the real top players are doing it primarily because they really love the game.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
-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
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.
BTW, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktzWQlR8D6Y