Is Gaming Really a Spectator Sport? 105
njkid1 passed us a link to a GameDaily article on the upcoming DirecTV Championship Game series. There's big prize money at stake, dozens of teams are flocking to the banner of the event, and promoters are talking the event up as something that can't be missed. All of this begs the question: Is competitive gaming a spectator sport? Is the culture of videogaming conducive to mass-market entertainment? Will Counter-Strike matches draw enough of a crowd to maintain advertiser interest at future events? What's your read on this new entry into American gamer culture?
is any sport? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sport is something you should do, right? Well if not, then sure, gaming is a spectator sport. Some will like it, other won't.
People watch bowling etc (Score:3, Insightful)
People watch bowling. Pool. Pro Paintball. Once late at night I caught a demolition style "race" of trucks pulling campers (the drivers had sponsors).
It doesn't really take much of an audience to get sponsors. The key to lining them up is for the event organizers to make it clear to the sponsors who will be seeing their ads. If the spectaters interests and the sponsors are in agreement, then the deal works. I'd bet one could find sponsors for snail racing because there will be someone watching.
So I see no reason why computer games can't be either.
Gotta know the rules and nuances (Score:5, Insightful)
What they kinda found is that you need to know the rules and nuances of the game to appreciate watching it.
If you don't know that, you can't appreciate what's happening before your eyes.
I'm a big sports fan and while I know the rules of practically any competition sport enough to understand what's going on, I have no clue about the finer points of the sports apart from the few sports I watch frequently. The sports I don't know enough about I don't really enjoy watching especially if I'm with someone who does know the finer points. The whole experience just goes right above my head while my friend is hollering about some magical play that just happened.
The same applies to watching video games. I'm a relatively good racing game player and I most definitely enjoy watching the great racers compete against each other, because I "get" how they race so fast. I'm not very good at Halo 2, and I just can't get into watching competitive Halo 2 matches, because I just don't see what's so great about the performance of some of the top players.
It COULD work... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure FPS is the ideal genre for a spectator sport either. The number of players and the limitation of the first-person view make it tough for the audience to really keep track of what is happening and where all the players are.
RTS games may make better viewing. They tend to last longer and the overhead view, coupled with the slower pace should make it easier for an audience to follow what is going on.
Re:I'd watch it... (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO if you want it to work right you have to take a look at the level design and ensure you can capture all of it and still see the action that's going on. I also think you need to have dedicated "camera men" that can go anywhere to help capture the action with an editor dictating which action to follow. I also think they need to put small Picture in Picture windows of the players faces so we can see their facial and body language. And theres no reason we can't have slow motion replays as well as commentary by people who understand the tactics, strategies, and the background of the players other notable games and records.
I think to get a feel for it a few games would have to be recorded with some time spent editing it for spectator consumption, and once they start to understand what works and what doesn't they try it live.
Some genres would work better then others, racing games for instance would be much easier to show considering it's a real life sport and they can use the same techniques used for showing the sport in real life. Most single player or turn based games would be fairly simple, as well as fighters and other games where the players share a single screen. but IMO stuff like MMOs, RTSs, Shooters, or anything where the players have their own display would take some getting used to before it would be something easily shown on TV.
The problem I've seen is that in prior attempts the producers and editors weren't gamers so they weren't really showing what people were interested in seeing. They'd show the peoples faces, or a close up of the controller, or a quick clip of the players screen and it was more of a nonsensical collage then anything else. The in game action is the most important, but you need to see a good overview, you need to see what all the different players are doing at the same time. the players faces are secondary, you need to see the person behind the on screen character but it shouldn't detract from the on screen action, just give a small view into the emotions their going through, a determined look, a look of disbelief when they die, or excitement when they score a point etc.
Games are not designed to be watched (Score:3, Insightful)
With RTS games the situation doesn't look much better, while the top-down view clears up some confusing, only having a tiny view on the whole map adds enough back into the mix to ruin the fun. That the minimap of the game and the units itself end up being a unwatchable blurry mess on a TV screen doesn't help either.
So while all this isn't an issue for gamer, since they can just watch the demo recordings in the engine itself, it makes games quite unsuitable for broadcast. That games have quite complicated rules makes things only even more complicated.
For video games to become a spectator sport they simply have to be designed to be more watchable. What might also help is if the demo playback would become easier, i.e. say you could download them on XBoxLive without a need to buy the game itself or keep it manually at the right patch level that is able to actually play the demo, just click&watch.
Texas Hold'em? (Score:3, Insightful)
Depending on the game, there are some people I prefer to watch than play the game myself. A friend of mine is a killing machine in Halo - I'm good, but I've watched him play for hours online and not die. That's good TV.
But I'm not going to watch someone roll their Katamari into the same wall five times in a row without bitch slapping the controller out of their hands.
Likewise I'm not going to watch someone build a city. Nor am I going to watch someone ride their pet tiger across a green landscape.
It has to be fast paced and action packed. First person shooters with good viewing perspectives, real time strategies with massive battles, possibly even head to head puzzle games, but they'll all need constant stats, and really aggressive players.
How about the lumberjack competitions? It's a guy chopping down a tree. WTF. But it's how it's presented and all the information they give with it.