the Schet List

[No Recording] - Dec 2 2008

2008-12-03T10:25:00.002-05:00

UStream has slowly degraded into justin.tv-esque levels of crappy service over the last 6 months since we picked it up to put theWRATH over. The latest cute stunt the service is pulling is screwing up recordings; the last two shows we did only found the last 25% or so viewable, the rest was corrupted and all players skip way out to the end of the file. Just peachy.

As such, I'm not posting the archive here from last nights show. :P

Tonight's Show | Dec 2

2008-12-02T20:38:00.003-05:00

Segment 1: this week's Schet List: for consumers

Segment 2: 'Vultures' picking over the CGS carcass? The gaming media turns on itself, and NOBODY CAN STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS CRAP.
Articles referenced:
The CGS and how marketing works - sometimes
CGS CGS CGS
Paupers will be kings
Kings will be Paupers
Corin's Column: The Fall of CGS
compLexity's Future

Segment 3: tonight's guest: Michael 'peawok' Fleming of Insider eSports and compLexity.

Segment 4: phones open, call in and grill us and the guest. In the US: 773 634 7553 In Canada: 780 669 6612.

[Recording] Episode 13

2008-11-26T16:34:00.002-05:00

This episode's recordings became fragmented due to two outtages within the first half hour of the show. Remarkably, we managed to hold on to most of the audience through it, and went on to put on a record-busting show for theWRATH.

Part 1: starts about 15 mins in.

Part 2: the rest of the bash

Tonight's show | Nov 25 2008

2008-11-25T20:38:00.003-05:00

Segment A: CGS dies, it's the economy, stupid. Or was it?

Segment B: Braindead Civil Disobedience; L4D and Mirrors Edge hit the spot.

Segment C: Tonights POPOFF
TRL, pyramids, Aruba, pirates, Jacko

Tonights Guest: Brad Dick

Brad Dick guest on Nov 25

2008-11-24T10:29:00.004-05:00

My guest this week has proven himself to be a polarizing figure in the world of competitive gaming, and has an insider's view on the CGS and the events of the past week, being involved with the Chimera. I welcome Brad Dick to the show; I'll see if he can offer some further insight into the CGS, as well as find out if I'm completely misinformed on my skeptical views throughout the life of the CGS and what led to it's closing.

Catch the show and call in - Tuesday Nov 25 (tomorrow night) at 10p ET.
(http://wrath.tgbf.tv/)

CGS: an autopsy

2008-11-19T10:37:00.010-05:00

First, before we dive into the main topic, a personal note: I've decided to revive this terribly neglected blog of mine, at least for a while. I figure it will help me keep my thoughts organized a little better in regards to the weekly show I do on TGBF-Radio under the same name as this blog (formerly 'the eSports Blackboard'...a terrible name). I also hope that I can use this to ramp up into and begin to publicize a new gaming site that I have currently in development; it's a concept I've had rolling around for a while now and I'm quite excited that I'm able to start work on it.

Enough there, time to dig in.

The major reason I decided to unearth this decomposing blog was mainly to publish this piece. The occurrence of major events taking place around gaming was the inspiration for the creation of this blog in the first place, so it's only fitting that it be revived by the shock wave that's been sent around gaming from the implosion of the Championship Gaming Series. Just to get everyone up to speed, the CGS billed itself as the 'first true gaming league,' with the gamers earning guaranteed salaries, and being assigned to teams with names attaching them to major cities around the US; when it was rolled out it seemed to have all the trappings of a legit sports league. While this perception persisted for many around the gaming world through the short two year existence of the CGS, I began to see serious faults with the CGS model maybe two weeks after its inception. The failures of the CGS can be attributed to recklessly ambitious and unsustainable expansion plans, combined with a willingness to merely mimic key attributes of successful sports leagues instead of truly implementing them, and a failure to consider the link between a sports league and the culture it resides in. It is the following list of critical failures of the CGS model that led to its lack of success and its shutdown yesterday:

1. Teams had no real connection to the cities they were said to represent in their names.
2. The lack of division between the television production and the league itself compromised the league.
3. The mashing together of team games and individual games into a unified, points-driven format has no parallel in sports, and is confusing to both enthusiasts and casual spectators.
4. The lack of diversity in ownership of teams was serious trouble in the long-term.
5. The teams had zero viability as independent businesses outside the television production.
6. Rapid expansion to 16 teams worldwide in the first year is straight lunacy.
7. Considerations of culture and mainstream acceptance of a gaming league presented at such a level were either ignored or unexamined.

All these points seem to reference each other, I realize, but when all piled up they all point to the last point: CULTURE. It all comes down to that - sports and culture are inexorably linked, and the growth of both a sport and the culture that embraces it is a process that must be given time to develop and must be carefully balanced against each other. A sport cannot grow at a faster rate than cultural acceptance allows - a sort of cultural demand must exist for a sport in order for it to flourish. So, while I've tried to organize these points in some sort of progressive manner, this piece may seem to be a bit circular at times. To be frank, the these faults were so glaringly obvious that the closing of the CGS was no surprise to me, and also makes me wonder, that with such a massive budget behind this endeavor, how the leadership could let it fail in so many respects.

1. Teams had no real connection to the cities they were said to represent in their names.
This is the first of many half-baked practices that we'll examine here; the link between a team and its host city is so fundamental to the business of sports that I can't understand how it could have been overlooked. City-based sports franchises work because the team has an actual presence within that city. The Chicago Bears play half their games in Chicago so their fan base can come and see them in person, they have sponsors that are based locally in Chicago, and they take care to involve themselves with community-building programs alongside local charities and businesses. The Chicago Bears can include 'Chicago' in their name because they truly are a part of the city.

When the CGS first came about I was still living in Chicago, on the north side, in Rogers Park. I saw there was a team announced for Chicago, so I was curious where they were going to be playing and when the first season would start so I might take an opportunity to go spectate a home game and see things go down firsthand. I just naturally assumed that a team named 'Chicago Chimera' would be playing in Chicago. I was wrong - all matches would be played on a sound stage in California.

That cheapened the league immediately. They severely underestimated the casual viewer they planned to drag in - simply playing a highlight reel of popular tourist spots while a commentator rambles on about the city does not in any way link the teams to their supposed home cities for any engaged viewer. Maybe the channel surfer will gloss it over, but anybody who spent anytime following the league would realize these city associations meant precisely nothing.

The reason for this is understandable, to a point. The logistics and cost of having teams travel around the country to play their matches, as well as transporting HD camera equipment from location to location was probably a bit too much to stomach, and shooting everything at the same studio over the course of two months was a reasonable cost-cutting measure. At the same time they were also cutting down the legitimacy of their league, and if they would have been a bit more creative they may have found some ways around this issue. (Of course, I have some thoughts on this, they will be included in my next posting.)

2. The lack of division between the television production and the league itself compromised the league.
The utter failure that was the XFL illustrates this point most painfully: a sports league (or 'property' as was the word used by the CGS Commissioner) that emphasizes the glitz, special effects, big hits, and the small details over the real meat and potatoes of the sport will crash and burn. The XFL was the bastard lovechild of professional wrestling and American football, born into existence by NBC and the World Wrestling Federation. It pushed silicone stuffed cheerleaders to the forefront and turned the relatively regimented and regulated game of football into a no-holds-barred Roman-gladiator bloodsport. In the XFL the advancement of the sport was not the primary concern, rather all this was to fuel a television production. As a result, the public didn't bite and showed no interest, in fact an airing of an XFL game at one time held the record for the lowest rated show on a major network for 6 years.

We see the same syndrome in the CGS, where there was no division between the television production and the league - they were one and the same. The games and formats were watered down in order to suit the needs of the television production - when it should have been the other way around. This had far-reaching effects in the scene, particularly in CSS, where everyone basically started playing with the truncated format, changing gameplay style significantly and doing away with the pistol round, and was done under the banner of 'playing like the pros.' The damage is done and as a result I think the CSS community has been dealt a blow that it won't recover from until Valve releases a completely new version of Counter-strike.

Again, the mainstream viewer has been underestimated. The sports fan doesn't want a cheap plastic version of a sport - they want the authentic article, the real McCoy. This is why the XFL failed, if more football was going to be made available for consumption, people wanted more of the NFL, not a clown car knockoff. This is why the CGS gained very little mainstream attention, it wasn't truly authentic gaming, it was instead an over hyped loosely scripted game show being made to look like a legitimate sports league. ESPN's Madden Challenge is an example of how to do a gaming series show properly where the competition and the TV production are the same thing. They plucked people from the gaming community as they were, no useless teams or other contrived league constructs, and showcased them without a bulky fabricated league structure that doesn't make sense (something I'll expand on in the next section) - nothing overdone, no multimillion dollar sets, just major focus on the competition and the gamers themselves.

If something like the CGS ever comes into existence again, it will have to exist as a wholly separate business interest outside of whatever media coverage it has if it will have a chance to survive, and must be economically viable with or without lots of television coverage. Otherwise you get what happened with the XFL and the CGS - when the television production goes down, so does the entire league.

3. The mashing together of team games and individual games into a unified, points-driven format has no parallel in sports, and is confusing to both enthusiasts and casual spectators.
This was the most frustrating part of the CGS' attempt to make itself look legitimate, because it was so awkward and forced. In an effort, I'm assuming, to make each episode of the show be more cohesive by pitting one team against another, but still showcasing all games that were played, each team was comprised of several units: one CSS team of five players, two Dead or Alive players (one male and one female - another ridiculous decision that I discuss in a previous post), two Forza Motosport players, and one FIFA player. These composite teams would square off against each other as a whole, with each unit playing the corresponding unit on the other team, and a winner would be determined through a convoluted points system that required a 90 second explanation during each episode.

This to me is the equivalent to taking a basketball team, and tacking on a 2x100 swimming relay team, a doubles tennis team, and a golfer to create one homogeneous 'sports' team. Then we pit those teams against other similarly comprised teams to find a national sports champion!

It's really as ridiculous as it sounds, and yet this model was sold as a proper gaming league (and a lot in the gaming community are guilty of buying it wholeheartedly). The argument of trying to include all corners of the gaming world falls completely flat here - by trying to please everybody the CGS pleased nobody. The CGS may have had a shot if it started with one game and expanded from there - CS would have been the best choice, if not then a console-based team shooter - and then added more games along the way. But to steal a line from Offspring, as more games are expanded into - YOU GOTTA KEEP EM SEPARATED! Let each game (sport) have their own independent competition, and don't tie the performance of a team playing a team game to an individual playing a solo game.

4. The lack of diversity in ownership of teams was serious trouble in the long-term.
There isn't much to expand on for this point, but it's worth pointing out - there was no diversity in team ownership. This is a crucial part of how sports franchises work - individual owners each owning no more than one team and looking after the financial interests of their own team while taking part in the larger business that the league is creates the unique blend of competition and dependence that makes the economics of sports work.

This is completely lost in a system where all teams are essentially owned and operated by the same entity. Since all players that signed on for this TV series weren't signing to a specific team but the production as a whole, if later down the line a team proved to be too dominant for the good of the league (read: the ratings), I would not have been surprised at convenient 'trades' being made to level the competition back out. With the production in complete ownership over the entire operation, there would be nothing stopping the production messing around directly with the competition itself in the name of ratings. This is a weaker point in terms of my whole thesis, as the CGS was not around long enough for any such monkey business to become necessary, however it would have been a real concern in the long term if the CGS found success in the first few years, but found support waining as time went on.

This lack of team owners is really part of a larger problem, and that's the next point:

5. The teams had zero viability as independent businesses outside the television production.
We saw this become apparent not even a few hours after the CGS made a posting about their shutdown: the general managers and the players were blindsided, and at the time of this posting are still trying to figure out they're now going to do, out a job and without any funding for their teams.

This really ties together the first, second, and fourth points above. With all the teams living off a steady diet of television money, when that dried up these teams were hosed.

They're now back in the same boat with the rest of the scene, where they have very little leverage to pull sponsorships that would offset the income lost from the CGS folding. If these teams would have actually operated in the cities they called home, they would have been able to find locally-based sponsorships from local businesses, like any local sports team does, from pee-wee baseball and football all the way up to the professional leagues. Instead, they along with the rest of gaming, have to struggle to find sponsors that fall into a very narrow category. A smaller business wouldn't benefit from the widespread exposure that a gaming team would offer, but a larger corporations with nationwide operations may not see sponsorship of a gaming team as being able to bring them the kind of large exposure they expect their marketing dollars to bring them. So, it's a very narrow band of mid-sized companies that also have a national reach that could benefit from sponsoring a gaming team, and in the end the economics of the whole thing would still probably not add up for the team.

The reasons for this were outlined and partially excused in the discussion of my first point. However, since the television production's interests were served first and the teams never had an opportunity to build a presence within a city, they had no means of creating a business model for themselves that would ensure their survival if the production went under. With the teams completely dependent on the production, where the show went, so did the teams.

6. Rapid to 16 teams worldwide in the first year is straight lunacy.
No sport in history has managed such a rapid expansion. The CGS never stopped blowing their own horn about how fast they were building new teams in every corner of the world, and how unprecedented it was that they went from zero to global so quickly. This is ironic considering that the reason it was unprecedented is because no other sports organization has been stupid enough to attempt it.

Just because something is put on television doesn't mean people will watch it, especially when it only airs on DirecTV and Sky and on a channel that doesn't lay anywhere near heavily trafficked channels in the lineup. The CGS grew exponentially faster than the public demand for the CGS was growing. The effort to extend the operation to cover nearly the entire world during the second year of the league's (read: show's) existence blew through funds that should have been used to market the CGS better where it already was: in the States. Instead of creating a larger demand for their product in the US, instead they opted for a situation where nobody gave a crap about their product worldwide.

I apologize for breaking the academic tone I've tried to strike in this piece, but there's really no way around getting personal here; whoever was making the decisions behind the direction of the league side of the CGS was wholly incompetent and a complete moron. Who am I to make such assertions? Some random blogger that has been able to dissect the failure of the CGS completely from the outside...that's all.

7. Considerations of culture and mainstream acceptance of a gaming league presented at such a level were either ignored or unexamined.
All the previous points tie into this one: whoever was at the top realized far too late that they pushed 'an idea whose time came too early.' A nice try at sugar coating a turd; the CGS was not ahead of it's time, it was fundamentally flawed. The existing culture of gaming and the formats that were widely used and time-tested were watered down, altered, and contorted to supposedly be more digestible for a mainstream audience; instead what resulted was a contrived mess that has no parallel in professional sports. The economics of team sports franchises were ignored in most respects and merely mimicked in other respects, such as appointing general managers and naming teams after cities and regions they have no concrete connection with, leaving the teams hung out to dry with no economic viability outside the television production.

When a new type of sport or competition comes into existence, it must always wait for larger cultural acceptance before it can grow larger itself. The CGS's most critical fault, and the one that would have led to its eventual downfall, whether it was this year or next year or in five years, was that the CGS looked to push cultural acceptance of gaming as a professional sporting endeavor faster than it was possibly able to go. This was folly, a culture is an entity with countless dimensions and nuances, and a great deal of inertia. I use the term inertia because it is extremely hard for any one individual to exert their will or viewpoint on an entire culture, and it becomes even more complex and difficult to enact change in a culture or move it in a specific direction with every additional person that comprises it. Cultures are very heavy things and they tend to move slowly and deliberately. The CGS thought they could create a demand for something that the American culture wasn't asking for yet, professional gaming on TV, and do it at a rate many times faster than cultural inertial will allow.

It's time for me to stop politely dancing around the following as I have this entire article: the Championship Gaming Series was not a professional gaming league, it was a reality television show. The gamers and general managers cannot be blamed for jumping at this opportunity to play games for money on television, but they were cast members on a television show, not really professional gamers, and the self-billed 'World's First True Gaming League' was a joke. The CGS had all the bells and whistles, the television coverage, the flashy game-show-like sets, big name commentators (not going there), and a giant hype machine, and a sizable budget. What was missing was everything that makes a sports league...well...a sports league. Instead of building the foundations of a real professional gaming league, the CGS cut every corner possible, and took a league that was in no way ready to be thrust onto a national broadcast stage onto just that stage. It's like building the top floor of a three story house, and propping it up on two floors of toothpicks and masking tape.

I hope it's no longer astonishing to you that the CGS failed. Again, the only thing keeping my jaw agape is how the CGS expected to be successful carrying on as they were.

My next entry: how to build a proper professional gaming league, and what the CGS might have done differently to make their model actually work.

CGS, ESWC botch gender in gaming

2007-07-20T16:00:00.000-04:00

There exists an obvious but thin reason to segregate men and women in select sports - and that is testosterone. All arguments of female body builders aside, in only highly physical sports, such as American football, basketball, hockey, men at a peak physical condition will perform better than female counterparts. This accounts for the existence of a separate basketball league in the States (WNBA), for instance, since otherwise most women with maybe the rare exception would not be able to enjoy opportunities to play basketball professionally. However, such reasons to segregate competitions by gender don't make themselves so immediately obvious when it comes to gaming.

However, in many sports, gender segregation has very little justification save for following the status quo that has been in place for well over a century. The first I've observed tackle this head on is auto racing, and I don't think it's really as much NASCAR encouraging the idea rather than headstrong female drivers proving themselves on the track to the dismay of grey-haired pit managers who would vote Pat Buchanan into the White House.

I digress; my point is that these plucky racing pioneers have made a realization that the people behind the ESWC and CGS would be smart to make - that in most sports and competitive games, gender doesn't mean shit.

Holding a separate competition for men and women in key pushing and mouse movement with a second course of strategic and tactical planning and teamwork with finely tuned hand-eye coordination for desert - otherwise known as Counterstrike - as the ESWC has done, is simply useless and counterproductive. Similarly backwards is having separate competitions for male and female Dead or Alive players, as is being done in the CGS.

Whatever marketing arguments that might be made regarding a gender division to 'highlight' female gamers and attract a less male-heavy audience, while its intention is good, are quite possibly achieving the opposite. Gaming events being done with such a high profile would do so much to attempt attracting the female demographic into such a male dominated activity by using their event as a platform to further gender equality by not segregating genders in their competitions. It's not even enough to merely pit the sexes against each other, it's about realizing that competitors in gaming competitions can be gamers first and be of a gender second, that your hormone production has no impact on your ability to play video games.

At the least, such practices can certainly be chalked up as a missed opportunity for gaming to make a real impact on today's mainstream dynamic.

AMA: Gaming a disease

2007-06-22T16:00:00.002-04:00

If you play video games for more than 2 hours a day, you're about to be stricken with a disease. No, you haven't gotten it yet, and it'll hit without warning. But if the American Medical Association decides to formally recognize 'video game addiction' as a real disorder, millions of people across the States will be instantly infected.

This is the head of a growing trend for grey haired researches and aging conservative doctors labeling every new wave of tech culture as some sort of addiction or disorder. This most recent iteration lays out a very sweeping definition for 'addicted gamers.'

"A gamer is a term used to describe a person who plays games. Historically, a gamer was someone who played role-playing games or war games, but more recently the term has come to include computer and video game players. Although the term technically includes those who do not necessarily consider themselves gamers (ie, casual gamers), it is a commonly used colloquial term to identify persons who spend as much of their leisure time as possible playing or reading about games. Video gaming has traditionally been a social experience, and most video games are playable by more than one person. Multi-player video games can be played either competitively or cooperatively online by using multiple input devices, or by â€œhotseating."

See yourself there? Better call up your shrink because you need therapy, apparently.

The study suggests several calls to action, including the ESRB cracking down further on gaming ratings, calling on physicians to 'further educate the public on the health risks of gaming,' and to limit gaming time to no more than 1 to 2 hours per day. Where is the line drawn now, when doctors decide to take aim at something which people do in their leisure time that has no direct negative effect on a person's health? Besides this study's potential damaging effect on the competitive gaming scene as a whole and it's attempts to gain a more mainstream audience and following, due to the general public's perpetual willingness to swallow any sort of scare tactic pushed at them, this also could open up a proverbial can of worms regarding new treatments, crackpot psychologists, and high-profile (and don't forget high-cost) drugs to treat this new invented disease.

And that's exactly what it is, invented. As long as prevailing medical thought continues to root itself in some sort of Pleasantville 1950s mentality regarding technology and the motion of culture not only here in the States but worldwide as well, the more that medical societies like the AMA will become increasingly irrelevant in the public sphere.

I, however, am going to make sure I get in as much gaming as possible in the next few days...that is of course before I'm diagnosed with a disease. But not before I write to the AMA to urge them strongly to take up similar courses of action against action movies, cell phones, email, text messaging, playing golf, practising a musical instrument, hanging out, walking....

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070615/002750.shtml

http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/06/doctor_urges_am.html

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20031104/2344216_F.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060915/031213.shtml

http://news.spong.com/article/12879?cb=601

The new, real virtual battlefield

2007-05-30T16:00:00.000-04:00

The protests and riots on the part of Russian nationals in response to the decision made by the Estonian government to move a Soviet-era war memorial is not exactly current news any longer. However, all political and nationalist concerns aside, these protests have brought to light a new type of operation in the arsenal of the independent partisan - attacks on the electronic infrastructure of a nation.

The idea is nothing new to gamers or hacker types, we see individuals, ventrilo servers, game servers, and even entire IRC networks get targeted in DDoS (or distributed denial of service) attacks. A DDoS attacker employs software specifically tailored for the purpose of converting mulitple other innocent bystander machines which have been infected with some sort of malware or trojan horse into a sort of crazed bandwidth-thirsty zombie machine. Unbeknownst to the owners of said bystander machines, the attacker can use the collective bandwith of his computerized zombie minions to rain hell on the intended target machine. This is commonly in the form of hammering the said target with more communications requests than it has capacity to respond to, rendering the target unable to function at even a fraction of what it is able to operate at under normal conditions. Typical targets are individuals that got on the wrong side of someone with the right tools, and website hosting servers; a few plucky groups have even tried to launch attacks on DNS root servers in an attempt to bring the entire internet to a grinding hault.

Now that we're up to speed on the methodology, we can now have a look at just how little the folks behind this wave of DDoS attacks on Estonia are fucking around. Based on the compilation linked here, the attackers were occupying a network capacity that at times was peaking around 100 Mbps. This is a good 30 times the average residential peak upload capacity in some parts of Europe, and a good 150 times the average residental upload capacity in the United States. That makes for one massive internet wrecking ball, which the attackers were swinging wildly all over Estonian internet interests - government sites, banking mainframes, and even large commercial or corporate sites based out of Estonia, in a clear attempt to bring the increasingly progressive and tech-dependent Estonian society and economy to it's knees.

At least for a while, that is. The attacks are nearly at a standstill at this point and things are resuming as normal in the Estonian internet space. The small upside to such attacks is that they carry a reduced threat of long-term damages; while some can result in locked up session or a crashed OS all together, most attacks are a just a pain while they're being launched and everything can resume as normal after the source has been found and properly locked out. What has not yet been estimated yet (it seems) is the obvious negative effect this deliberately targeted attack had on the Estonian economy.

It has been speculated that the attack might have either been carried out direclty by or at the least ordered by agents of the Russian government, speculation that Moscow has been quick to deny. But in light of many strange happenings that seem to point towards the Kremlin, can that possibility really be ruled out? In addition, are we seeing the dawn of a new battlefield, not merely a theatre of operations for rogue hackers and troublemakers, but of warring nations?

Problematic elitism in 'eSports'

2007-05-05T16:00:00.001-04:00

eSports needs to die if gaming is to progress.

A bold assertion, I realize - and please don't misunderstand, it's not the activities of the entire scene that I have a quarrel with, but rather what everyone pretends to call the scene and themselves: eSports, cyber- or e-athletes. What's in a name? Why would I feel the need to take issue with the term used to describe the hardcore gaming scene, especially since it seems to be commonly adopted by those it's intended to describe? My issue with the term 'eSports' lies within a wholy larger problem that is having and will continue to have a quite damaging effect on the scene as a whole - elitism.

The term 'eSports' tries to draw a broad overarching parallel between that which it only really meets halfway - the world of professional sports. Here lies the major dillema which the serious gaming scene has been trying to wrestle with for years now - what defines a sport and what qualities does a sport have over something defined as merely a game? And where does the competitive gaming scene sit on that spectrum? Lets take for sake of examining this further that football (soccer) is a sport and chess is a game. (I can't imagine too many people taking issue with that.)

Chess involves one thing primarily and above all - mental prowess. Chess is an endeavor of the mind, focusing on planning, strategical foresight, tactical agility, careful calculation, and seeing and executing that winning combination of moves which results in victory: checkmate. However, you need only the physical ability of being able to move one piece weighing no more than a salt shaker a couple of inches every few seconds - no great display of physical agility or endurance here.

Football, in comparison, requires a great deal of mental prowess as well by all players on the field. This is also exhibited in long-term strategical planning, figuring out how they'll manuever against certain other players, and having similar vision team-wide in seeing and acting on opportunities presented, moving themselves individually and as a unit around the field to create that opportunity for a goal: checkmate. However the physical prowess and conditioning necessary of participants in football far exceeds that of chess, and in the opinion of this writer is one of if not the key qualifier which separates sport from game.

I see sport as the true and full convergence of mind and body; all facets of a person's being are called into employment while participating in a sport. Yes, professional athletes in any major sport are rarely noted as posessing particular eloquence or remarkable intelligence, however what they are and must be smart about is every little nuance of their sport of choice as well as how to keep their bodies in peak condition and how to best utilize their own unique physicality in the approach of their job. Conditioning, strength training, and agility are all primary concerns, but are ultimately useless if a competitor or team comes underprepared for a contest - you hear it all the time, "We just weren't prepared enough for this game."

Now the quandry that the term 'eSports' creates should lie quite exposed when viewed from this angle: the physicality involved in activites most widely recognized as sport is far and above what is required by gaming. Pushing a mouse around, clicking buttons and using a keyboard in a gaming setting demands some dexterity and a good deal of hand-eye coordination, but demands nothing towards a peak physical condition in order to achieve it at a high level. (I'll delve no further into that point as it'd be far too easy to get blatantly offensive...) Gaming certainly requires more physically of a participant than chess does, however does that qualify it as a sport? Or does it rather lie inside a grey area between the two - and if it does, can we ignore it, call competitive gaming a sport and expect that to be swallowed by the mainstream? Within the intellectual realm, gaming certainly demands the same of participants as chess and football do of theirs; however this is where the comparison ends and, in my opinion, so does the validity of the term eSports.

Even setting all of the lofty philosophy behind the term aside, a simple pragmatic examination of the term sees it fail miserably. Those readers who consider themselves serious gamers, the next time you find yourself out getting a beer (or a soda for the kiddies) with your non-gamer buddies, please try and bring up casually that you participate in 'eSports' and see what kind of reaction you get. I have 1:1 odds on smirks with a 5:1 option on flat out laughter. This humor (at your expense) would be derived from the 'air castle' effect; quite simply and on its surface, the term just tries too hard, and at its core the term exhibits the detrimental elitism that generally (but with exceptions) plagues the upper crust of competitive gaming to the detriment of the entire scene.

This is the same elitism and arrogance which exhibits itself in sectioning off groups of teams in 'elite' divisions in online leagues, a pointless practice which creates cliques and cool kids clubs who use their CAL-Non-O status as a platform to piss on the heads of anyone 'below' them. This is the same elitism which is found every 'postseason' in online competitions, where all the recreational teams who could give a shit less about championships, really just want to play for the sake of playing, and comprise the majority of any game's competitive community, are not given a scheduled match and are forced to sit out while the gaming aristocracy has their little playoff for four, five, sometimes six weeks. This is the elitism that is justified in the name of eSports, a term that gives license for individual players and teams to be exclusionary, closed off, and stifled, and that welcomes community growth not for the sake of greater competition but only to serve as a larger pedestal to scream for more prize money for themselves at LAN tournaments.

'eSports' says to the casual gamer that what the eSports participant does is somehow different as well as inherently more valuable than what they do. I participate in eSports, I am a 'cyberathlete' - you're just a gamer. This distinction does not have a place in sports. Participants at all levels are considered 'athletes' - from the Hall of Famer down to the Little Leaguer, they're all athletes. While this goes unnoticed and is simply how we all consider sports participants, its important to note that an athlete is an athlete regardless of the sport or relative proficiency. Any distinction of proficiency is not part of the term, but is left to outside qualifiers, such as 'professional,' 'semi-pro,' or 'recreational.' Again, regardless of level, an athlete is an athlete - it's inclusionary and encourages participation. eSports is an exclusionary world, flat out discourages participation by the very way the scene chooses to separate and present itself as an exception to and superior to the rest of the gaming world, and is exclusionary even in the way that prominent leagues structure themselves and make new teams and new players feel incredibly second rate and excluded from the full experience.

If professional gaming has a chance in hell of existing on a stable, long term basis, 'eSports' and all of the elitism attached to it must be kicked to the curb without hesitation, and we all need to stop pretending that what we all participate here is somehow something greater than gaming at a high competitive level. It would be for the greater good of all involved - the casual gamer, the competitive gamer, and the mainstream onlooker - if we spent as much effort towards the sharing and the propagation of what we all enjoy so much as we do trying to make competitive gaming seem like a highly exclusive country club.

The first step towards that is getting rid of the notion of eSports and being honest and real about just what it is we do and how we define ourselves: we are gamers and we participate in gaming - nothing more, and nothing less. We can begin to build a community on that premise that has the potential to stand much stronger than one built on the faulty premise of eSports - a premise that engages both the expansive casual gaming community as well as opens the door towards encouraging wider participation at any level of gaming. Efforts towards expanding the gaming community as a whole will go further towards helping secure a solid foundation to build professional gaming on rather than trying to promote such a ridiculous notion as 'eSports' on it's own weak merit.

Makings of a monopoly

2007-04-24T16:41:00.004-04:00

Pop quiz: who owns Major League Baseball? Who owns the National Football league? Who owns professional basketball?

Stumped? Here's an easier one: who owns (or at least claims to own) professional gaming? This should bring forth a decent list of people all of whom have tried (and failed, to a point) to claim ownership over competitive gaming, and all of whom have done so under the premise of 'trying to bring gaming to the mainstream' or 'furthering the gaming community' - Angel Munoz, Scott Ringel, Michael Sepso, among others are prominent on that list. We can add one more name to the list, and it's a scary one: News Corporation.

As much as they will try to bury the connection in an attempt to make the Championship Gaming Series seem legitimate to those that don't know better, the CGS is nothing more than a hugely elaborate, well funded, and overly hyped production for a television series - media fodder, and nothing more. In the process those at News Corporation plan to make every red cent they possibly can from gaming for as long as they possibly can, leaving the gaming scene, quite honestly, screwed over either way things progress for the CGS.

The connection is clear despite their attempts to 'clean up' the CGS image by removing all direct references towards DirecTV and registering an LLC specifically for it in order to mask ownership completely. Trace the ownership of five of the seven partners for the CGS - DirecTV, Sky, Star, IGN, and GameSpy are all owned by News Corporation. CGS leveraging the assets of News Corp to deliver gaming to the mainstream? Negative, rather News Corp leveraging its own weight to build a monopoly on that which is better left open.

The singular element that contributes most towards professional sports leagues' stablility, economic feasibility, and overall integrity within the general public is lack of ownership. Curious as to why it was so hard to dig up answers as to who owns professional baseball or football? It was a trick question, the league has no ownership body, and in most cases is an unincorporated entity, and merely is a representation of all teams inside the league doing business collectively. The professional sports league entity itself is no more than a cellophane wrapper around the real business units in sports: the team.

This fact has been ignored by each and every individual who has attempted to build professional gaming in the United States for the simple reason that lack of ownership means lack of potential to profit directly and without limit from the entirety of the league as a whole, which leaves little room or need for people such as Munoz or Ringel. In simpler terms: you can't profit off of that which you don't own. And since these competitive gaming figureheads have no viable place inside a true professional gaming league, since their goal is to further their own bank account at the expense of furthering gaming, nothing of the sort has existed.

The CGS is not the answer, quite the contrary - it exhibits this issue to a much larger degree and is blatantly overt in it's intentions: to own professional gaming.

Andy Reif, 'Commissioner' for CGS below.

eSports is truly the convergence of sports and entertainment and new media and traditional media. By combining high level competition with the rich content and action of video games, we are creating the next great sports property. (Full story)

The word 'property' is a key: it clearly states their intentions here (it was used six different times in the three page article linked above) and it means only more of the same for gamers and gaming: we provide the basis and get none of the reward. The gaming community has been flat out fleeced for a decade now by people pretending to further it, and much the same will continue now with the CGS. News Corp is not interested in building a legitimate gaming league half as much as they're interested in building a television production. Teams that sign with the CGS are not becoming the first truly professional gaming teams, they're signing on to become actors and actresess in loosely scripted TV series. And with supposed deals aimed towards locking down entire games from being aired anywhere outside News Corp networks (which I would just as soon chalk up to typical Gotfrag sensationalism - and speaking of Gotfrag, I wouldn't be suprised if there was an acquisition announcement made rather soon) the intention is clear to dominate gaming media to the point that if a truly legitimate professional gaming league was to be established - one geared towards the advancement of gaming itself for the maximum benefit first of the players and teams above all other concerns - that it would be stifled by a lack of media attention due to outstanding agreements made towards News Corp's CGS.

Yet it's the competitive gamer that is the most supportive of this endeavor despite the clear intent to abuse them. The figure at which these initial teams are 'signing' in terms of compensation will set the precedent to be used for all future signings; if you think that player salaries in the CGS will increase over time if it takes off, you're bloody mad - if the current batch of players won't play without a raise they'll simply find another batch of idiots to play video games on a television show. If Mr. Wendel can be hyped as the 'John Madden of gaming' they can turn any pub scrub into the next gaming phenom. The signings of compLexity and Team 3D to the CGS are historic only in how much damage they have done to the quality of life for aspiring pro gamers for years to come.

It is the mainstream who will have the most trouble swallowing this, because as much efforts are being put forth to merely mimick the structure and workings of professional sports, it's far from the real McCoy, and it's those that don't have a vested interest in gaming to begin with that won't be able to stomach it. News Corp's professional Counter-strike league is not nearly as attractive culturally as the 'national game of baseball,' and the link between a sports team and a metropolitan populace which is being ignored, since it's far more economical to have all teams play in an air conditioned studio in California instead of in the cities these teams are supposedly going to be representing, is going to be the achilles heel of the CGS.

Why my uproar? I'll admit, in a softer light the CGS could be viewed as a small step forward for gaming. However when viewed from all sides there is no disguising the five steps backwards this is putting gaming and gamers in return.

Much ado about nothing

2006-10-06T21:32:00.000-04:00

And that nothing, folks, is the enigma surrounding girl gamers.

What touched this off? Navigate over to the CyberEvolution website (here, allow me to assist with a link) and reference the second graphical ad from the top in the second column from the right. The headline reads: 'Looks or Skillz? Melee on Female Gamers.'

Maybe that's what the writers of these blog posts would like to do - melee all over them. They must feel like they're obligated to now tear into these hapless gamers (that just happen to have a vagina) in order to bury their guilty thoughts under a pile of cynicism. Now that's likely not the case and it's just me being cynical in the face of the same. However I've seen it happen, firsthand -watching a new recruit to a clan hopping on voice comms for the first time, introducing herself, and then watching half the clan losing control of their minds, pants, and mouths. (As if they have a chance in hell with a chick 200+ miles away that already knows first hand they're a HUGE dork.)

This primeval response to a gamer that is female - the same response found when a small group of hapless girlfriends walks into a giant sausage fest and turns the testosterone faucets on - this is where the 'controversy' over this topic resides and ends. The gaming world has primarily been a man's one, one of grunting and shooting guns and cursing on comms and not showering for days! (Yes, let one stereotype meet another.) Apparently, anyone who calls themselves a 'pro gamer' and makes a point of looking pretty while doing it should promptly get bent.

Anna Kournikova. I'm sure if you're reading this blog you've probably at the least heard this name, if not Googled it a few times for desktop fodder (I'll go no further).
Martina Navratilova. If you haven't heard this name as well, I've already proved my point. If you've only heard of Anna, you know her as a hot chick. If you've heard of both, chances are you have followed women's tennis to some degree at some point.

Both Anna and Martina played tennis as their primary means of existence. One of them was arguably the greatest player to grace the women's side of the sport, with quite the list of accolades and titles. The other never won a single professional singles tournament, and made it to the final match in only four of them, mostly due to her explosion onto the scene, which put her in more photo and video shoots for advertisements than on a tennis court. I'm sure you can figure out which person fits which description. Anna did not become one of the most searched strings on Google for her tennis prowess, and that's for damn sure.

If the bloggers behind this post (same as the one referenced at the top of this article) as well as this one (also linked by the previous) were instead concerned with the advancement of women's tennis in the 1990s instead of the current video gaming scene, they would probably be calling for the crucifixion of Anna for the greater good of the sport and great players such as Navratilova. And yet, there are few others involved with women's tennis at the same time as Kournikova that did more to increase spectatorship and overall interest and awareness of the game, and she sucked. That is not to detract from the accomplishments of Navratilova, but sometimes just plain being pro and kicking ass isn't enough to make people take notice and care.

But to say that these groups of gamers that prefer to flaunt their looks and charisma over their skills should not be allowed to call themselves 'pro gamers' and should evacuate the scene is just backwards. Just as Navratilova didn't inspire the masses to take notice and get people interested in her and the game, neither does the dominance of Complexity on the CS 1.6 scene get people fired up about the sport.

So leave them be and let them gain attention in any means they can. Hell, thank them for it. Because it will be similar figures like Anna Kournikova, golf's Grace Park (links: (A) (B)), and swimming's Amanda Beard (links: (A) (B) ) just to name a few, that will go further to bring the gaming scene closer to the consciousness of those otherwise disinterested than yet another tournament win (or loss) by Fatal1ty.

As for the rest of the gaming population that happens to be female and would rather not attract any attention to themselves and just game - much like the rest of us who just happen to have penises - well, that exactly the kind of clearheadedness that is lacking from those that want to make a big deal out of females gaming. They're just like any other gamer. Testosterone or estrogen, a gamer is a gamer. Realize that and realize that the controversy and enigma just plain evaporates - because it was never really there at all.

Breakin up is hard to do

2006-09-13T20:25:00.000-04:00

Especially when the whole thing plays out in front of thousands via a front page post on the largest eSports news media outlet in existence currently.

We've seen it before, and it only heightens the irony of the whole ordeal. I'm talking, of course, of CEVO's (CyberEvolution - a growing online gaming league featuring a pay-to-play for cash prizes model) split with now fading eSports media giant TsN (Team Sportscast Network). We saw it first with TsN in the position to gain the most from the whole situation - when they were granted exclusive rights over anything going on at CEVO, at the expense of SourceRadio. To their credit, before they were bumped out they made full use of their rights, casting something like seven matches in one night between izzle and virulence (I believe). That's an undertaking, and at least half of it I know was excellent stuff. Shortly after, TsN, apparently feeling threatened, worked an all-inclusive exclusive deal with CEVO. The ensuing carnage played out on the CAL forums and on the front page of the SourceRadio site, where in typical fashion for him, Jinxed dragged all the drama and the whining and the pleas to the community out into the open in one big pathetic unprofessional sobfest.

Now however, if there was anyone to hand a box of tissues over to Hunter from TsN, it'd be him. Seems like they could get along now that they've got some common ground; both have been 'screwed by CEVO.' Yeap, those evil bastards; cry more.

It is an absolute kiss of death to try and turn your private business failures into a public debacle for sympathy. If anything, they should have taken note of the first time when CEVO cut ties with a media organization - SR took their sob story to the public and look where they're at now. (Word on the street is they're actually going to be back at CEVO...but with what talent and for how long? We'll see.) Take your licks, learn from it, buck up and move the fuck on.

Businesses don't deal in sympathy. It's called trade for a reason. A business will trade money for raw materials so they can turn it into something worth more than the materials that went into them and then trade that product for more cash. Simple economics, I know, but worth pointing out, because in the scheme of grassroots eSports broadcasting, the company trades their product for community support; the better the product, the more support. When you offer your content for free, that's the model. Communities see no worth in pathetic displays of finger pointing and 'woe is us' and won't trade for it. What's in it for them? Existing community support banks are an unreliable and volitile equity; in this business, if you fall off a precipice and rely on a throng of supporters waiting there to catch you at the bottom, you're going to hit the ground that much harder.

It's because the community, in the end, doesn't care what you've done even a month ago let alone for the past five years. Nor do they care what you're going to do next month. It's all about now - are you putting out the best damn product on the market right now? Clearly, boys, you weren't, or you wouldn't have gotten dropped - period.

Equally unprofessional is other entities using TsN's current woes as a fucking platform to promote their own organization. (Note, you won't see one mention of mine here. In fact, I've only mentioned it once in this entire blog. That, friends, would make me no better that the rest of the mess.) Several prominent figures from practically every other eSports broadcasting entity has stepped in on the comment thread attached to the Gotfrag article on this very issue - including people from GF itself - either to post their snide little comment or a flat out two paragraph plug to attract attention to themselves and their own project. How completely honorable and professional. [/sarcasm] Most blatantly offensive is this article; how much more tactless can you possibly get? [Edit: The article has since been removed. Smart. Comparing the CEVO - TsN split to such a human tragedy as 9/11 was quite enough to write several pages of unabashed verbal retribution; it was the move I hoped they'd make. No matter, the link stays and so does the mention.]

Say you're a pirate. You don't ram a sinking ship with your own to make it sink faster; you'll only poke a hole in your own hull and join them at the bottom; instead you wait for the thing to sink and wait for the booty to float to the top. Patience. Stick to your game. Stay out of the bullshit.

And just work on your product, your craft. Because that's what's good for the community, for the media organizations, for eSports. This decidedly isn't.

It's been what, three months?

2006-09-11T20:17:00.000-04:00

At the least, it has been the better part of that. Sorry.

I'll be honest here, now that it's all far enough back where it doesn't really matter anymore. The creation of this blog was just as much the product of a need to get my $2.68 (adjusted for inflation) out there on the eSports scene as it was to keep my profile up within the communities that I knew and that knew me during my broadcasting hiatus this past spring and summer. Basically, I wanted to stay within the consciousness of the (at the least) Battlefield-savvy EGLN viewers that gave me so much encouragement and support while I worked on my eventual return to the mic. Did I know where or when?...no. So putting something like this up in the meantime made sense.

Now that I and my partner Will are building up a serious head of steam over at FragTV, this here blog has gone by the wayside. Why return my attention to it now? Well the initial post at a recently opened new blog maintained by a former colleague of mine at EGLN referenced myself and Will as "industry veterans" (kind, for sure - I've really only been at it for just over a year); more importantly, this new blog looks pretty much identical to this one - which then led to thoughts of, "oh shit, I haven't posted in, like, three months." Maybe my former colleague is plotting a similar departure/path that I took in recent months? We shall see. This blog is surely not the only thing I've done to be mimicked by folks still at my former station, and surely won't be the last.

So, does it fall to the wayside now? Maybe. If you have checked this thing even weekly these past months to find nothing, bless you. Now go take a walk. For the rest of humanity still sane, I anticipate this going towards one of two extremes: either this will be the last post ever and that's it, or the premise of this blog will be turned into a monthly or weekly show on FragTV. It served its purpose but now that the reason behind the creation is resolved, there has been little impetus to keep it up. I'll be brainstorming ideas on how to turn the topics explored and discussed here into a show over the next month; your thoughts are welcome - XFire: 194schetter.

This time, I'll keep you posted. Thanks to all that read and especially those who commented.

I digress

2006-06-17T23:31:00.000-04:00

This post will at first have nothing to do with eSports, while at the same time, have everything to do with it. Neat trick, eh?

I was hooked by the World Cup. I went into work late (if at all) if there's a match on (but don't worry, I manage a small coffee stand and make my own hours - pretty cushy). I was jumping up and down when Sweden's Ljungberg scored in the 89th minute in their match against Paraguay. No, I don't have any particular affiliations with either nation, I don't have any Swedish ancestry, and I don't know any of the players. Yet that unbelievable goal scored in the closing minutes of the match got me to stand up out of my couch yelling and pumping my fist. I was LIVID at the two ejections tossed at the US team during the Italian match. My comment regarding the referee garnered a record number of pms on my XFire during the day after the match (194schetter). I couldn't help but pull for Ghana, I'm followed the German team with great interest, and I couldn't help but smile while watching the Brazillian team. I can't get enough of this stuff and I don't play soccer, nor did I care until a few weeks ago.

There is something about this year's World Cup that snagged me in a bigger way than the recent Olympics did (which really wasn't very much at all). Meanwhile, both the Stanley Cup finals and the NBA finals ran practically in tandem; it's a great time of year in a good year to be a sports fan. In all cases we're witnessing contests between people and teams that are the best around at what they do. The CPL Summer event is coming up, long considered to be, alongside the Winter event, as the proving ground for the best around in gaming. And yet this event is not even close to garnering the sort of attention that it aims to grab. The CPL has been at it for nine years now and competive gaming has already recieved it's 15 minutes of fame in the form of a 60 Minutes interview with "Fatal1ty," and now is in a critial stage in its development. Can gaming build some staying power or fall off as one big passing fad?

"Hey, remember professional gaming in the early 2000s? That was cute."

That could be the mainstream in 10 years. Folks like Angel Munoz, Matt Ringel, and Scott Valencia are in great danger of letting their work go to waste if the vision of professional gaming is not extended further than the just the next calendar year, as it seems to be now, and opt to continue throwing more money at the players and making shortsighted decisions regarding such things as media partners (although the CPL may have gotten something right with DirecTV - we shall see, however I digress).

Larger and larger prize pools have not been as large a factor in gaining attention as expected. Gaming events are starting to reach cable (and now satelite) broadcast channels in the States (which are, incidently, laging behind our cousins across the pond on this point), but it can be argued that the majority of those watching such broadcasts are at the least casual gamers themselves. The coverage is not necessarily the problem - whether it be TsN who did the CPL Winter event and the recent WSVG event (even though they're now lacking a key personality or two, most notably Coltrane) or anybody else; if coverage of a gaming event reaches a large commercialized television station, it's going to be done professionality and with at least a bone or two tossed towards the mainstream audience to try and hook them into what's going on.

But it's just not happening. Clearly it's not the prize money. If there was a million dollar curling contest, would you watch? No, because it's curlilng, and curling is boring shit. (At least to me it is.) And as I said in my previous post, most titles out there being played competitively are just that - boring shit - to anybody who hasn't played the game.

It's more than just that though - and this is territory that organizations like the CPL and WSVG need to get hip to if they're going to be ultimately successful. The cultural and social integration of competitive gaming into the mainstream is being ignored (despite much rhetoric to the otherwise); simeultaneously the gaming culture itself is still too much of an underground movement with such a largely immature community attached to it that it's not even ready for cultural integration in the first place. Combine that with a whole slew of competitive gaming figureheads hellbent on taking gaming to the mainstream now and we have a volitile situation.

I'd like to take a look again at mainstream professional sports and spectatorship, because therein lies the key to this whole mess. Let's take my least favorite team for example: the Chicago Cubs. The very reason why I dislike the Cubs with such passion is the very thing I need to prove a point here, which is the fans. Your average Cub fan doesn't give a rats ass about how the Cubs are doing, as evidenced year after pathetic year in which Cub fans (which I lovingly dubbed 'Cubtards') pack onto Red line trains out to Wrigley and sell out every last goddamn game. This seemingly makes no sense when the statistic of yearly attendance is stacked up against overall record on the year, until you realize that Cubtards aren't there to watch the game. Nay, these grinning Cubtards are there to meet up with friends, pack into the bleachers, and get drunk quick enough not to notice that the Cubs are down 5 runs in the third inning...so they can keep on smiling.

It's more than just the overgrown frat party aura that draws people to the games, or to watch it on television - it's also the history of the ballclub (maybe your pop was a fan), or the tight integration or presence that the team and the stadium has within the community. Bottom line is, when people go to the game, or flip it on to watch it on TV, it's more than just watching the game, it's participation in a social/cultural event.

Next time (and hopefully sooner than it took me to get this post out) - what direction the talking heads should be taking this whole thing if they were truly interested in advancing gaming as much as they were interested in advancing themselves.

Pro Gaming: hitting the big time - when, where, and how?

2006-05-31T18:09:00.000-04:00

In the following space I hope to outline some of my thoughts on the gaming world that center around one little buzzword: mainstream. This may take several installments, but this post will at least serve as a starting point in generating some discussion (add your comments, please!)

It seems to be overriding goal of most leading organizations in the eSports world to bring gaming 'to the mainstream.' The CPL, WSVG, MLG, even media organizations like MTV and TsN have used such language in reference to one of their key objectives in getting involved with organized competitive PC and console gaming. Yet with the CPL faltering somewhat (which cannot be argued with the upstart WSVG making major CPL events mere stops on their tour), and with coverage of these events clearly not garnering the kind of attention that they were intended to grab, that is, the attention of the mainstream (the last major competitive event that was telecasted was the CPL Winter event in New York by MTV), the question still remains if gaming can ever reach 'mainstream' status. Clearly the right formula has yet to be found. However, while that question is not a new inquiry, I feel I might be the first to ask whether gaming should be aiming to garner mainstream attention. But more on that later.

So what exactly is holding gaming back from recieving attention from the masses comparable to that of sports? It could easily be argued that this is the parallel that the trailblazers of competitive gaming are trying to reach. And while this parallel doesn't quite make sense on the 'amateur' online level as has been pointed out many a time on league forums everywhere, when it comes to thinking of gaming on the professional level, this comparison cannot be ignored; it is the model to be aimed for. I feel there are several things that competitive gaming lacks in its current state that is hampering its development as a cultural entity rather than just a novelty profession for some and a hobby for a few more.

One of these elements however is not the lack of 'superstar' personalities. This is clearly one of the things that is developing just fine - with top names signing endorsement deals, getting their names on equipment, etc. But while the public image of the 'gamer' is moving away from the painfully nerdy guy with glasses living in his basement due to these handful of true professional gamers, there's plenty of incidents like this one that could just as easily paint the gamer as an immature, unprofessional idiot. While much the same could be said about a few professional athletes, that is more the exception rather than the rule in pro sports. Browse the forums of any such 'professional' gaming organization, or any place where top gamers online gather for that matter, and you will see much the opposite. The issue here again is not the lack of personalities, but the lack of good personalities.

A more serious issue here, however, is the games themselves. With games becoming increasingly rich in graphics, sound quality, content, and gameplay, it would seem that the games should be the least of worries here; yet the games being played competitively are holding gaming back. No, it's not about the violence. Most games allow you to disable the gore, if any, and reduce the content to little more than a Nerf-gun fight with cartoon-like consequences, safe for any child to watch. The issue is spectatability, and carries two prongs: either the games themselves don't lend to passive spectating very well, or built-in support or mechanisms that make spectating easier are spotty at best, or both. Counter-strike arguably leads the way on the PC end as far as support for spectators with HLTV, which I think is one of the major factors keeping 1.6 on a far inferior engine more popular than its Source-based cousin. However, even so, is CS that fun to sit and watch? What about other games, such as Halo or BF2 or AA, that have less spectator tools; are they more spectator friendly?

Being around the eSports media scene for quite a while now and just through my own observations as well as talks with my colleagues in this field, it has become quite apparent to me that the games being played, while rich in the terms of gameplay and quite rewarding to the player to participate in, hold very little in terms of a rewarding for the gaming spectator, and holds even less for the casual spectator. In other words, you have to be a gamer to fully understand what's going on while spectating today's games. You would have to have played Quake 4 to know just what a crouch slide is and how it can be used. You would have had to have played BF2 to know just what prone spamming is or what squad hopping is and how it's used (or used to be used). Part of the task of fixing it does indeed lay on the shoulders of the developers; all it will take is one developer to build a game with the advancement of the sport in mind over making millions of dollars first (and then they'll make their money anyway) and build a game that is both deep enough to offer rewarding gameplay at the upper eschelons of competitive play while still being simple enough to be grasped and enjoyed by the casual spectator. This is a tall order and I realize is easier said than done on multiple counts. I still hold that it can be done, and it may require looking outside typical gaming genre molds to achieve.

The other part of this task, however, lies with myself and my colleagues in the media industry. Gaming media currently is dominated by gamers with their target audience being other gamers. Language used both in print and streaming medias has been largely directed towards the eSports-savvy crowd at the expense of alienating any part of the mainstream that may take interest. This is only compounded by the unnecessarily hostile and cliquish culture and mentality of the gaming community, who would just as easily cast off a newcomer as a 'n00b!' and flame the hell out of them before giving them a hand.

I will leave this entry here, but this topic still has much left to explore. As always, your comments and discussion here on this topic would be greatly appreciated - please post your views!

Here comes the flood

2006-05-23T09:13:00.000-04:00

Teams have begun to drop BF2.

This is nothing new; teams have been dropping the BF series seemingly since it hit the shelves. First it was old :42/Nam teams who didn't like the quicker pace of play, pilots disappointed with the jets (and rightfully so), people who couldn't seem to handle the squad system/hopping - then the threats from numerous teams and individuals on league forums everywhere that they were going to drop the game when the new 1.x patch was going to hit (and then not following through on it). But this wave of drops that has started is entirely new.

People are just getting sick of this game. It hasn't been a year and people are already getting the feeling that this game is just plain played out.

This phenomenon is clearly only at the competition level, however. The pub community is stronger than ever and continues to grow. Hop in any populated ranked server and browse the ranks quickly. Lieutenants are not at all uncommon and people are reaching some serious ranks. I wouldn't be able to tell you or estimate the number of points required to reach some of those levels, but my point is that some folks that just enjoy pubbing are really enjoying pubbing. It could be that the whole ranking system with its MMORPG-like 'leveling' aspect with the ranks provides a goal for folks to work towards and so keeps them playing. But what I think is more likely is the fact that the gameplay is just more fun in a large, public server kind of setting. This is also manifested in the relative success of the BF2 Combat 'Tour of Duty' community, which specializes in large-scale coordinated 30v30 play.

A quick examination of two design elements are convincing enough to me that this game was never built with competition in mind. (This is a point that most folks don't need convincing of, but requires illustrating.) The first of these elements is the cursed 'random cone of fire,' which was basically implemented so that people that were less skilled at the FPS-style games didn't get totally rocked for the first few weeks that they played. The issue is that it puts a tangible ceiling on the skill of the well-practiced competition player; no matter how well someone can aim and lead a target, there's no telling how far off the mark that bullet they're about to fire is going to fly. That issue alone can kill a game competitively. (Think CS would have been nearly as popular with a 'random cone of fire?' Heh.) Add in the fact that all the maps included in the game were clearly built with 64-player public server play in mind, and you've got a knock-out combo. The maps used in competition on all levels and in all formats are not fully designed and realized for play at that level, instead they're canibalized versions of the full 64-player map with some flags moved around and less vehicles. This has a slight impact on pub play (only slight because the flow of play is much less coordinated within each team), but the impact on competitive play is huge. All competition is going on in maps that were not particularly thought out fully in terms of 8v8 play; instead the designers just shrink down the area of map to be played in and plunk 4 flags down.

The comparison I wish to make here is between BF2 and :42, one of which is seeing its top teams drop out of competition out of boredom after two seasons and hasn't even been on the shelves for a year yet, the other which saw 6 seasons of solid competition and kept people scrimming and pubbing for nearly two years. The difference, I think, is that :42 did not have the two things outlined in the previous paragraph. The maps were the maps - no scaling. Instead of building the maps super huge for 64 player play, the maps were built to encourage rich play whether there was 10 players in a server or 40. Also, when you put your crosshairs on something and fired, that's where your shot went.

This is not to say that :42 was built for competition in mind, because it wasn't either. It just happened to be a bit more condusive for it. But what BF2 lacks in this aspect is fueling the bordeom that are making teams drop. BF2 just doesn't have the same hook that the original did and this is the manifestation of it. And while seeing these teams drop is no reason to panic - a few teams dropping is certainly not going to kill the competitive community around BF2 - but it's a sign. Either some new teams that aren't quite so bored need to step up huge and keep pushing the envelope as far as competitive vigor, or this is the beginning of the end for BF2. We all know that once top teams and even championship teams start jumping ship, the overall level of competition and value of league titles become devalued. And when teams defending titles (such as HOT in 12v12) see no reason to stick around and defend it, that's a big sign that the recent pullouts are only going to accelerate.

This is also preceding news I recieved from an inside source that 1.3 is scheduled to hit today. After all the outcry over what was to be changed by it within the competitive community, I wouldn't be suprised if we saw CAL-M collapse right in on itself. Not that I'm predicting it...I just wouldn't be suprised.

So is this the end for BF2? Nah. Technically, BF:Nam or :42 haven't died yet with folks still playing 5v5 over at Teamwarfare. But is BF2 gonna be suckin some serious wind here over the next month? You bet.

Some waves, maybe.

2006-05-13T21:27:00.000-04:00

I don't really know who all frequents this place, if anybody. I apologize for the lack of new stuff lately. I've been caught up the past few days with typical stuff, work, school, etc.

However, some extremely interesting stuff has gone down as of late in the casting world that deserves a few comments; it all centers around GotFrag, and it's got the communities around the major competition platforms at CAL buzzing.

GotFrag on Thursday announced plans to launch 'GotFragTV' in a few months. Behind this new branch of GotFrag, a company that up until now has specialized in online print content exclusively, is a deal with the CPL in which they bought the streaming rights to all CPL competitions, including rights to matches played through CAL. How much the deal was worth or any further details haven't been annouced, including what games they're planning on covering or who they have staffing the outfit (if anyone at this point).

This deal is not only something that is going to alter the shoutcasting scene in the short-term but sets a precedent that will change the dynamic of the industry permanently. A tangible ceiling has been set for anybody just trying to put together their own independent stab at the whole shoutcasting thing. Sure, you'll be able to cast the low profile stuff, but if you want to get anywhere in terms of major LAN tournaments which equates to the kind of exposure any casting company would set as their goal when setting out, you're gonna need some capital to get there.

The effect that this will have on the eSports world as a whole is immense. Coverage of major events are moving away from hobbyist sort of endeavors and towards more polished, serious, commercial efforts and will soon be considered as much as a profession as the actual gaming being covered. Frankly, I think it's about time. It's not that those involved in eSports media have entirely gone unpaid to this point - it's not unheard of - but this is a clear sign that the industry is moving in a very new direction.

This direction is a good one if GotFrag is responsible with spearheading it. It's gonna take getting the right personalities in there for the casting, making sure the production quality of the video and audio is extremely well done, and that everything is absolutely solid on the techincal end. If they fail at any one of those things, they're going to be faced with a very surly competitive community that already have their favorite casting companies or personalities elsewhere, and who are going to be extremely pissed if GotFrag wedges in on something that another company can outshine them in. In BF2, for instance, if EGLN and TGBF continue to cover CAL (which, honestly, I wouldn't do considering some of GotFrag's new stipulations on CAL coverage by other entities that I've caught wind of) and are doing the same quality work that both organizations are known for, and then GFTV (GotFragTV) trumps them out of the playoff matches at the end of the season, they'd better make sure they're doing a damn good job of it or it's not going to be good for GotFrag or for the CAL. It's much the same thing that I discussed in my first post on this blog regarding TsN and the WT.

I'm not trying to ensue that GF will screw this up. They've been around for around 4 years now and have done extremely well; I have relative confidence that they'll do the job that they've now required of themselves. However, no company is infalliable; this industry is no different.

I guess all there is to do now is...wait.

Bestest clan site EVAR

2006-05-10T22:52:00.000-04:00

http://www.webspawner.com/users/hairlessmonk/

I had to share.

2142

2006-05-10T20:11:00.000-04:00

(Today is the day of the numbers.)

A comment on the BF2 forums at CAL that I read earlier today sparked this entry, and entirely because of it's baseless nature. The comment ensued that the 1.3 patch was meant to drive people away from BF2 and into 2142.

Frankly, if 2142 is gonna need that much help to get off the shelves, they might as well shelf the entire project and do something else. Let's look at the entire process behind that hypothetical situation: a company craps up a game to encourage people to buy their other crappy game. Now folks end up with two crappy games. End result: end of franchise.

As far as I'm concerned, BF2 should have been the end of the franchise anyway, if they weren't going to do a remake on :42 on a prettier, more solid engine. Instead, with 2142 they're going to go head-to-head with id Software, releasing basically the same product after id will be finished with theirs. If they don't want to take humongous losses on 2142, they better damn well make sure they're releasing a solid game with no blatantly retarded (and seemingly unfixable) bugs. Release a modified BF2 (which judging from the gameplay videos already out there, is what's happening here), and bye-bye BF. The hype for Quake Wars is already immense and is ensuring that 2142 is going to either (surpass QW and actually be a quality product out of the box and) be a classic or be a blower (which is more likely).

Either way, I'm not shelling out anything towards it until I see some good press from the folks that know - those of you reading these posts. I saw PCGamer had a recent 'EXCLUSIVE LOOK' at 2142. I was laughing to the point where people on the other side of the racks at Borders were looking at me funny. They did the same cover story BS for 'Nam. What a great game that turned out to be.

Clearly some folks at Dice need to go play some :42 for a week and remember what it felt like before they design another game.

1.3

2006-05-10T11:04:00.000-04:00

This post is going to be a short one as I've gotta run to work in 20 mins or so. Forgive me.

But first, thanks are in order for those who have stopped by and read my initial posting, and especially those who commented. The impetus to post here regularly has been reinforced. Now for the main topic, which has been at the center of a few discussions: The upcoming 1.3 patch.

The outcry over the planned BF2 1.3 patch within the competitive BF2 community has been centering around the changes being made to the squad system. The squad hop is a tactic used by every remotely successful BF2 team to date in every format, and so the competitve community is reacting with good reason; this single change will impact the way the game is played more than any other change made via patch to date. And this guy thinks it's an incredibly good thing. The flow of matchplay in 8v8 and 12v12 will be much more controlled, providing for an environment where key tactical planning will carry great rewards.

While most folks can't see past the fact that they'll no longer be able to choose any one of their teammates to spawn in on just seconds before the respawn, and then cry foul because it appears that gameplay will slow down, this is merely a kneejerk reaction. Further analysis will find that teams will have to adopt policies with more tactical direction and the role of the commander will be augmented; 'pushing' a squad leader far behind enemy lines will have to be planned more around a minute in advance rather than a few seconds. Large firefights and teams moving as more cohesive wholes will be seen in matchplay instead of entire teams popping up at random points on the map. It's a style of gameplay that has not been seen since :42 and frankly, I love it.

It seems that the 'squeaky wheel' pub community actually got something right for once, and I think we may actually see a small competitive revival for this game over the summer, instead of the decline that a lot of folks (including myself) have been anticipating. I seem to remember a lot of teams (regardless of competitive merit) drop this game mainly because of the squad hop tactic. We may see a good deal of those folks return, for better or worse.

The 1.3 patch, on the other hand, will be absolutely destructive to the 5v5 format. Currently the largest format out there in terms of the number of teams participating in it, the changes to the squad system in this case could end 5v5's run as an enjoyable if not viable mode of gameplay. And really, it's up to Teamwarfare to save it. They must show some impetus and support for this format in trying to bring in some custom maps tailored specifically to the format or they'll see their most popular competition (next to CS) die out, and in a big way.

I must run. Later tonight: 2142.

First post, initial thoughts; and the firestarter

2006-05-08T13:35:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my blog. This is my first stab at this sort of thing. I plan to make this a regular column/rant block of mine, but as is with all big ideas, it will be easier said than done. I've wanted to do something like this for some time now, but typically the idea would strike when I was away from the machine or without time to get it set up; then when I did have some downtime, I instead fretted it away getting owned in the grill repeatedly in Source by some of my old EGLN buddies. Fortunately (or unfortunately, IMO, for whoever decides to read this regularly), both the idea and the freetime required collided this afternoon and this is their lovechild. Don't worry, the smell will dissipate after a little while.

The 'kindling' of sorts for getting this off the ground was my need to get my two cents on the recent casting debacle over at the BF2WT out there without making a debacle of myself on public forums. With my current position being as it is - which is a relative state of limbo as far as eSports and the media goes - it's not entirely prudent for me to be that big of an exposed critic on what all is going on. But I, like most folks, just want to tell it how it is; this is where I'll do it.

Look, Stealth (head administrator of the WT) and I have had our run-ins before, remotely. Back a few months when EGLN was becoming EGLN out of BFRadio, we were having our 'launch party' and were trying to get listeners and idlers on our stream and on our IRC channel. #bf2 on Gamesurge is a fairly popular channel comprised of BF2 players, so it seemed a good choice to advertise our launch and prize giveaways based on idlers. I was promptly banned by Stealth for the advert and he set the Gamesurge cops on us for advertising some idling contest. While we were out of bounds (as we found out after the fact, reading the TOS carefully FTW), the reaction was kinda harsh...

As I see it, the recent riot over at WT and the subsequent response is just another manifestation of the same hardheaded character I saw out of Stealth just a few months back. What doesn't make any sense to me is how someone who has enough business sense to bring in sponsors to furnish prizes to a combined tune of 20 grand would make such a baffling decision to continue to ride the sinking ship that is (and has been) BF2 coverage at TsN. Harry is a good guy and an equally good caster, however it's clear that BF2 has not been a priority for TsN for months now, and while TsN outshines any other organization in existance currently in many other areas, BF2 coverage is not one of them; manifested most clearly in the dismal state of the stream being served up for the coverage of the recent c7 vs HOT match.

From what I read, TGBF (or BFGeeks, or BFTV, whatever you want to call them) didn't go about it the right way themselves. Instead of keeping their protests to themselves, their own website, or their comms and close contacts; instead we saw a machismo, biker-dude style move to hop in the server and just start casting. Clearly they had some cooperation from the teams, and I'm not going to speculate on how much the teams encouraged it, but it was a move made in poor taste nontheless, and TGBF made it. I'm all for competition in the shoutcasting industry and their look at the medium is entertaining and somewhat refreshing, but you can't expect to get very far if you blatantly burn bridges like that.

Similar could be said for the World Tournament. Granted, shoutcasting is a non-essential element of online sporting events; matches and tournaments have been and will continue to be played without the presense of a media organization following every match. However, you can't argue the benefits of media coverage of your event, it increases exposure within the community and also provides any sponsors an opportunity for increased exposure as well. But these benefits only come through quality media coverage, and it's painfully clear, taking into consideration the entire situation, that WT will not be recieving the quality coverage that a tournament of that calibur deserves unless something moves; that something being a rethinking by Stealth, an adjustment by TsN, or the trifecta of TGBF eating crow, Stealth accepting an apology, and Stealth letting TGBF in.

As it has always seemed to be within BF2, sadly, what's best for the community here is the most remote possibility.

Until next time.