Good and the bad, and the growth of eSports

GOOD:

People are actually watching

people are watching gaming - a concept that didn’t seem possible even 3 years ago at the level it is right now. Even people who have never really competed in some of the games, nor do they ever plan to, will watch just to be amazed by the genius of some of the players. Perfect example of this is cross pollination of some of the CS crowd to the SC2 scene, where some of the older players who have grown tired of CS have started to watch SC2.

People are starting to make a profit

And I'm not talking shady profiteering profit. I’m talking actually covering operating cost and making more than that. MLG’s CEO, Sundance Digiovanni, has state numerous times that he fully expects that this year they will be profitable - heavy of the coat tails of SC2 and also trying to shift focus from the sale of the MLG brand to having a sustainable business model. Fnatic, in an article with wired, are also(finally) profitable after many years of hard work. And ESEA’s Craig Levine, who hasn’t stated that they are actually profitable, sure seems to be from the growth of both the league itself and the services they’ve been providing for years. And the best part is that they are actually paying out their contracts - to competitors and to players. Those two things - paying out and actually being profitable - seemed to be mutually exclusively 2 years ago. Now it’s becoming an occurrence which is becoming increasingly consistent.

New people have come to the sport

SC2, as much as i’ve been resistant to it being the sole eSport, ha helped this a lot as it brought a lot of people and really, really, really grew the fanbase of not just it, but eSports in general. That and the Fighting Game Community(FGC) move to streaming has made them open up their eyes to whats out there(they didn't’ consider themselves a member of the eSports community even a year ago). The console community, through SC2, has started to not only learn how to stream their games on their own, but also what games like CS, quake, and LoL - which helped not only them learn about these older and much more structured gaming communities, but also allowed them to move into a space and help extend their brand outside their world.

People are having babies

Watching Djwheat teach miniwheat how to play starcraft 2 made me realize amazing for someone like me. People who i grew up looking up to in gaming are having kids. And they’re teaching them how awesome gaming is. Why is this good? People are old enough to be parents, AND THEY ARE TEACHING THEM HOW TO LOVE GAMING. We’ll have SECOND GENERATION players in 5 to 10 years. And they’ll be better. And they’ll be smarter. Pretty amazing if you ask me.

THE BAD:

People are stupid and ignorant

and no that’s not redundant. Everytime i read teamliquid, SRK, HLTV etc i always have to cringe. These people like not having events streamed(SRK) for some reason I've yet to understand. These people like how KeSPA managed players(TL). People actually think sirscoots founded lead and made Evil Geniuses what they are today(FUCKING EVERYBODY NEW). It feels like i have to yell at them or be condescending(which i do anyways because i’m a dick). Especially the last one. It seems no matter how many interviews happen, no matter how many streams are done, no many how much information is out there for the taking people are still stupid and still don’t take the knowledge they are given to them

Journalism Sucks

Straight up. Journalism in eSports is only one step above general gaming - which the people who are supposed to be critiquing and covering organizations are sponsored either directly or indirectly by the same people they are trying to critique. The opposite is also true, as i have experienced at insider eSports - that despite having good content and great coverage of games we couldn’t get a single sponsor because we were on some body's shit list or the people who were supposed to be helping us with the sponsor situation would either a) leave and take the sponsors with them b) go to a bigger organization or finally c) go work for the people who are supposed to be giving us money. Not exactly a conducive situation to finding funding. ANd it gets worst when the web 2.0er’s, especially in TL, don’t ever seem to realize that by posting news they are journalists - whether they like it or not - and therefore must do the due diligence that any journalist would, and it’s simple common courtesy to approach people for statements when you KNOW A SHIT STORM WILL HAPPEN IF YOU POST YOUR THREAD.

Players are either jaded or stupid

players seem to fear big organizations or seem to not get what they can do for them. Look at the root-gaming buy out for example: you have a group of guys in jax, jlake and jbass who have invest heavily into the sport, and in the case of jlake almost bankrupted himself for it, and the SC players didn’t want to join them. Even with the star studded roster they couldn’t get any sponsors on their own, so why did they split off to try to get them now? And coL HAS sponsors. And HAS had a history of providing for players. With the exception of some of the gaffs(releasing a team for roster moves, then picking up a game which is known for roster moves: contracting players then releasing them immediately) i don’t think coL is that bad of an organization. As i’ve said before - what were they afraid of by joining a big organization? That they wouldn’t have to eat top ramen every day to save in hopes of going to events? Or that they’d have time to practice instead of worrying about travel expenses? I seriously just don’t get why there’s some hostility to the bigger organizations. Now i'm not saying not to read all the contracts or sign immediately but they really need to think of the reputation each has - and certainly coL carries more than almost any other organization out there.


Contracts don’t mean shit

Every couple of weeks i see either a contract dispute or a player being in trouble because of a clause in a contract they weren’t aware of which led to all sorts of problems for them. But rest easy as these contracts don’t mean anything - as is demonstrated by the hatred SKgaming has for Fnatic and vice versa. If they’re willing to steal each others players - GUX for fnatic and Delpand in Sk’s case - without any real problem we have a big problem. If they were legit one would take the other to court - and win big. If the biggest organizations in the west contracts don’t mean shit god help us for this sport to ever be important. So break them as you please, nobody seems to care.

Maybe i'm hearing this wrong...

But is Milkis saying that KeSpa worked? What the fuck world is he living in. You think 14 hours a day of practice - MANDATORY. SEVEN DAYS A WEEK. FOR MINIMUM WAGE. As GOOD? You think doing that, and NEVER getting a shot at competing in a major because you're on the managers shit list, or even more heinous - being foreign - as GOOD. Or never being able to have a girlfriend or friends outside of the organization as GOOD. Or the possibility of being forced around to different teams - for no fault of your own. Or banning players for chatting - EVEN ACCIDENTALLY - or wanting to change their settings mid game is GOOD?

And KeSpa(the Korean eSports players association) was actually an owners association, run by the sponsors and never actually took the players perspective into their discussion. Or that the financial backing - from company like Hite, OGN, pantech, stx, eStro - isn't necessarily as sturdy as they thought, leading to sudden shifts in sponsorship, forcing sales and movements of players from location to another. And sometimes even forcing players to lose what few intimate connections they have through trades or through dispersal drafts.

Maybe he's been living in a box, but those conditions are not what i consider GOOD.

Quick snippets of my thoughts

Being on a TV show does not make you relevant
Being on a TV show does not make qualified to interview people
Learn about who you are interviewing before you start the interview.
Try to look stuff up before you open your mouth
Sirscoots did not found EG
Owning stock in a company makes you responsible for what happens in your god damn company
Most of the major players in starcraft are ignorant douchebags
Don't talk about what you don't fucking know
Try to stick to things. Arguments happen, don't be a bitch.
You can't kill an idea
Starcraft is not eSports
EG, mouz, alternate, dignitas, SK, fnatic, mTw, coL and many more existed before starcraft
EG, mouz, alternate, dignitas, SK, fnatic, mTw, coL and many more are houses that CS built
Having 5,000+ followers/subscribers doesn't make you important
People need to remember that this is a hobby
Don't be a douchebag, it doesn't help anyone.