Hacker News Reader

I disagree not with your overall point but with the extent to which game knowledge is necessary. I have never played baseball, I barely even know the rules, and watching a baseball match is incredibly boring to me. I can't appreciate it at all. It's literally just people randomly moving around to me. There is no difference to videogames here.

It certainly depends on the game, but you don't need to be an expert to appreciate some of the plays. A few days or weeks of gaming are usually enough to understand what's going on in professional matches and start enjoying them. That's the same as for traditional sports.

Case in point, chess, which is rapidly becoming an e-sport. I play casually, but am a really weak player. My poor understanding of the game isn't at all a barrier to me enjoying Hikaru on Twitch.

I think the main point (which you and parent agree with, but OP skimmed) is that SOME knowledge of the game is needed to be able to appreciate what is happening.

ex. "I know how the Knight piece moves, but wow, I never thought of using it like that"

That was one of starcraft 2's game and graphic design criteria: it should be obvious to the viewer even if they don't have the game knowledge. Unfortunately the game flopped fairly hard in term of esport (relatively to expectation) along with the decline of RTS.

Early league of legends's character designs somewhat aims to achieve this as well, it only lasted for a couple of years though. Basically the issue is that when you keep adding content (characters, maps), the complexity just grew too much. Not quite exponentially, but definitely some kind of super-linear.

I think this is one advantage of traditional board games (chess, go) and sports in comparison to Esports. If I spend a couple years of my life learning the basics of Go, 10 years from now on, I will still be able to appreciate the game all the same. Can't say the same for any kind of esports -- and I did spend thousand of hours in a couple of them.

Did SC2 flopped? It was released in 2010 and 13 years later it's still THE rts game when it comes to esport. I think it did a little too well ;)

Yeah it did unfortunately. RTS declined compared to MOBAs and FPS (mostly counter-strike)

I attribute this to RTS being stressful to play casually, which leads to a smaller player base.

I think I fall into that camp of people of love RTS games, but find it too stressful to play competitively. I like to turtle up and build my cool base and then run over the enemy with a wave of tanks. Command & Conquer was my jam.

Between SC1 and 2 I probably played a couple dozen straight up competitive matches. I much, much, much prefer custom games/'use map settings' in SC1 parlance, or good old co-op comp-stomps.

That's something I enjoy about Age of Empires 2 lobbies - you can hop into a big 8 player FFA, two people are clearly going to dominate, two people are building cute little NPC bases, and everyone else is in between. The focus is off you, but you still have your own little drama trying to do your best in a chaotic world.

It also makes it kinda frustrating though. Whether you win or lose isn't really decided by your own actions.

I don't think it flopped, but the casual userbase hasn't grown much. I chalk that up to Blizzard's failure to give Custom games more of a spotlight and the overall game being overtaken by MOBA and FPS-battle-royale games.

> Compare this to traditional sports like basketball, baseball, or hockey. When someone does something truly impressive, even someone who's not an expert in the sport can still appreciate it.

Incorrect. This is what people who are into sports think.

It doesn't matter how simplistic sports are, unless someone is into it, they simply don't care.

I watch basketball clips on YouTube. Sometimes my wife passes by and catches a player doing a windmill dunk, or a no look touch pass. Having no understanding of the game, she doesn't know to be impressed.

We both play WoW, and if we see some skilled players doing PvP, we are impressed.

> Compare this to traditional sports like basketball, baseball, or hockey. When someone does something truly impressive, even someone who's not an expert in the sport can still appreciate it. There's no special knowledge needed to recognize an amazing shot, a great catch, or a stunning goal. It's just obvious.

As an European who played a lot of soccer and basketball and watches a lot of soccer - I find baseball totally unwatchable :) Not because I don't know the rules well, but because it's too static and predictable.

I have the same problem with volleyball and to some extent basketball - the game is a linear combination of repeating the same basic task dozens of times. Whoever succeeds more times wins. So by the half-time you usually know who will win. And there's very little space for creativity.

Meanwhile in RTS and in soccer it's pretty common to win the game for 80% of the time only to lose it because of 1 big mistake or 1 brilliant play. This possibility makes them more entertaining even when it doesn't materialize - because you can hope or be afraid of a come-back.

This is IMHO why I enjoyed watching StarCraft 2 more than Dota 2 or FPS games even before I started playing SC2.

< I don't watch overwatch or Fortnite>

Isn't it pretty obvious when someone gets multiple frags? Saves their team? This isn't any different then the running back going through the other team. It's pretty obvious

I think the parent comment means it would have been hard to see if it was the person performing or if it was an algorithm

Strategy games are generally much more entertaining to watch than FPS games. Age of Empires 2 (yes, that one) is relatively easy to follow with a good announcer/caster such as "T90" on Youtube. Other big esports like Dota can be a lot of fun to watch, but require nontrivial knowledge of the game to really understand what's going on.

FPS games are entertaining as well. The downside is you need to know: (1) the game (e.g. csgo), (2) roughly know the map (e.g. de_dust2), and (3) have a commentator that breaks down the mindgames both teams are using. If you have all 3 elements, then watching FPS is simply amazing. I've watched a former CS pro (friberg [1]) commentate some csgo matches on his stream. It's simply amazing how much he knows about the game, and some of the mindgames / strategies both teams use.

Agree with you that it's a bit easier to know what's going on with RTS games like Age of Empires, since you have a top-down isometric view instead of only first-person view like csgo.

[1] https://www.twitch.tv/fribergcs

>There's no special knowledge needed to recognize an amazing shot, a great catch, or a stunning goal. It's just obvious.

It's not. This is like saying anyone appreciates classical music.

Try watching the remarkable machinations of genius-level chess players like GM Hikaru for a more familiar grounding.

ChessBrah might draw the casual user in with their blindfold bullet set to cool techno; the Botez sisters with their energy and wit.

E-sports has completely revitalised my love of chess and drawn many new non-players in by the demonstrations of streamers like the above of it's brilliance, variety and sheer, unadulterated fun.

Interestingly, as someone who watches/watched a few esports (typically games I've played as well – StarCraft, CS:GO) I felt the other way around with traditional sports. I don't really know the rules, nor can I make sense of what makes a good move in the game.

Some eSports like FIFA and F1 games for example are highly watchable even if you are not into video games.