Why People Watch StarCraft, Instead of Playing

generalepsilon writes "Researchers from the University of Washington have found a key reason why StarCraft is a popular spectator sport (PDF), especially in Korea. In a paper published last week, they theorize that StarCraft incorporates 'information asymmetry,' where the players and spectators each have different pieces of information, which transforms into entertainment. Sometimes spectators know something the players don't; they watch in suspense as players walk their armies into traps or a dropship sneaks behind the mineral line. Other times, players know something the spectators yearn to find out, such as 'cheese' (spectacular build orders that attempt to outplay an opponent early in the game). Rather than giving as much information as possible to spectators, it may be more crucial for game designers to decide which information to give to spectators, and when to reveal this information."

Thinking way too hard

[Anrego]

Like most academics, I think they have put way too much thought into this.

Outside of Korea I imagine people for the most part watch this stuff because it’s awe-inspiring to see someone playing who has literally dedicated a huge chunk of his life to the game and as a result is mind blowing skilled at it. Inside of Korea they watch it for the same reason everyone else watches hockey, soccer, football, etc

These guys really do treat it as a professional sport in Korea... with training camps, massive salaries, licensing and a _draft_. Spectators are just a part of that. Whether or not you take the “esport” seriously, it’s still something to see at least once, even as just a novelty.

As for playing vs watching, I assume it’s the same as any other “sport”. I can play hockey with the guys at work, and still enjoy watching professional hockey players who dedicate way more time to the game and are better at it then I’ll ever be. One can play starcraft with their friends while still having an appreciation for people who take it seriously.

I wish they would include that in more games

[elrous0]

I wish they would include a "spectator" mode in more online games. I'm not very twitch quick, but I do enjoy *watching* a lot of FPS multiplayer (where you can see the really quick and clever guys pull off some amazing stuff). I wish there were more games with a mode that let me walk around as a "ghost" in the game, just watching without having to worry about getting killed and tea-bagged over and over again by 14-year-olds.

Frustrating to Lose

[DigitaLunatiC]

I think another key issue is that StarCraft is one of the more frustrating games to lose for some people. When I play a game of Ultimate and my team loses, I can usually understand what mistakes we made, what plays we let go that we should have stopped and where we were outplayed. It's still disappointing to lose, but it's readily understood when it happens.

SC2, in particular, has a lot of information asymmetry between the individual players, not just the spectators and players. When I lose a match in SC2 I feel dumb. I still know there's something I should have scouted, a change I should have made in my build order, somewhere I could have had some better micro, or even when I fell behind on my macro, etc, but I don't really know what, at the moment of my defeat, I should have done differently. So I go back, and I watch, and I see all my mistakes, and I see my opponent's mistakes, and I think, "Why didn't I push then? Why did I leave this point undefended for so long? Why did I make unit x instead of unit y?"

One figures out why one lost, but one has to go through the process of watching it all over again, and watching all one's chances to win just stroll on by.

Re:Really?

[fhuglegads]

Or maybe it's like any other competitive sport, there are people who enjoy watching it being played at a higher level than they themselves are able to participate at?

I feel like this with League of Legends. The top players streaming is a completely different game than when I play. The strategies are very different and the games have a more natural flow to them. When I play as a "baddie" the games are often just a lot of discord.

Beyond that, there are players who don't like each other and sometimes they end up on the same team. It probably wouldn't work if the players were all anonymous and I didn't know who I was watching. Beyond the soap opera and the drama it's a good way to learn and see my deficiencies so then when I do play I have a point of reference to base my play against in an attempt to improve.

Re:Real Reason

[naroom]

Parent is correct that there are many RTS games with user interfaces that are far superior to Starcraft.

For example, Supreme Commander:

• You can queue up units to be produced on a loop
• You can zoom out to see as much of the map as you want to get a good overview
• The minimap uses glyphs that represent specific units
• You can issue a hundred orders to a worker, and it will carry them out in sequence
• You have several options for moving your units in formation

Whereas in Starcraft:

• Queueing units costs you resources, so if you're using the queue, you're playing badly
• You are limited to one screen worth of information. For example, you can't look at your main base and your expansion at the same time.
• The minimap just has colored blobs on it that give very little information
• Like queueing units, queueing buildings costs resources, so micromanaging is essential.
• Units will automatically move and attack in the worst possible formations; it is up to the players to manually correct this. See Mutalisk Magic Box [youtube.com] for an example. You have to fight the game's UI.

This does not, however, make Starcraft a bad game. User interface efficiency is not the most essential component of a game. If it were, World of Warcraft would be a spreadsheet in which players would replace "Level 1" with "Level 70" instead of all doing that inefficient crap where you kill small animals in the forest for months.