Sports Bars Changing Channels For Video Gamers 351
dtmos wrote in to say that "This summer, StarCraft II has become the newest bar room spectator sport. Fans organize so-called Barcraft events, taking over pubs and bistros from Honolulu to Florida and switching big-screen TV sets to Internet broadcasts of professional game matches. As they root for their on-screen superstars, StarCraft enthusiasts can sow confusion among regular patrons... But for sports-bar owners, StarCraft viewers represent a key new source of revenue from a demographic—self-described geeks—they hadn't attracted before."
Still not a sport, try as you may.. (Score:3, Funny)
I guarantee that if I'm at the bar watching a White Sox game, and somebody turns it off in favor of some video game, there's going to be hell to pay.
(replace "White Sox" with your favorite team that plays a real sport based on physical prowess)
Come on, bring out the -1's. Show me how malevolent you really are, slashdot moderators.
Re:Still not a sport, try as you may.. (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon: Obviously, for the basic reason that our metabolisms sure as hell didn't evolve for sitting on the couch and letting our fingers do the work, getting actual exercise is healthy and useful(some people are even into it for its own sake, I'm told).
Plunking your ass on the couch and cheering as your tribe fights the away tribe, though, bears basically the same relationship to real physical activity that plunking your ass on the couch and cheering as your RTS-er of choice drops some stimpacked marines on the opposition's mining outpost. That is, None At All.
Spectating isn't a sport, no matter what you are staring at.
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There are valid reasons for arguing that(in moderation, pro athletes get ground down like livestock and then put out to pasture pretty fast) playing sports is better for you than playing video games; but watching people do either is functionally indistinguishable.
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In some cases..yes.
But during college football season, I LOVE to go to the local bars where you can get good food, good drinks, yell and scream with friends, and most of all....pick up on some cute chicks in the bar that have had a few beers!!
You can't do that very easily when on the play field, or sitting at home in front of your TV on a video game.
For me, going o
Re:Still not a sport, try as you may.. (Score:5, Insightful)
We live in America. Majority rules. If ten people want to watch the Sox play, and 20 want to watch Starcraft, the bar owner is going to change the TV. And if you start shit about it, they will happily tell you to leave. Money talks. Mouthy assholes who think the world should cater to them and their every whim walk.
Re:Still not a sport, try as you may.. (Score:4, Informative)
And if you look at "athletic" it says "of or relating to athletes or athletics".
And if you look at "athletics" it says "exercises, sports, or games engaged in by athletes".
It's circular, so it can mean anything you want it to mean.
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Then why is poker on the Entertainment *Sports* Programming Network? Some people think it's a sport.
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Hear hear!!!
Just let me into my bar, where I'll have drinks, smoke a few cigarettes...and generally have a fun time. I'm regular at a number of watering holes, they know my name because I'm friendly, I come often, and I tip very well.
Because of that, I get met
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Considering starcraft is far less boring than baseball I don't understand your point. Of course I find football barely watchable, too much stopping. Hockey is a decent game to watch at the bar though.
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I can't tolerate football at all on TV, and I can barely tolerate it in person, for the same reason as you - too much time spent watching the clock tick with nothing happening.
I somewhat enjoy hockey on TV, but I LOVE it in person, especially in a highly energetic rink like Lynah Rink at Cornell. Sometimes you can burn 8 minutes of a period without a single stoppage of play. (Which actually sucks if the rink doesn't let you take your seats during play and you get to the game 2 minutes late.)
I'd find enter
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I guarantee that if I'm at the bar watching a White Sox game, and somebody turns it off in favor of some video game, there's going to be hell to pay.
If the video game supporters outnumber the 'real sport' supporters, I would think not... Instead of a game of who can be the smartest*, you prefer a sport where the luckiest win first and the best win second. * Where smartest here means the one who can outsmart the opponent, is better at strategy and can think faster.
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The thing is though, you can arrange these ahead of time to be played when there are no good games on. Baseball tends to have a game on almost any time every single day during the season but when you reach the fall, winter and spring sports you're talking about several days when there just isn't any games on. Sure, Americans play football all weekend (college on Saturday, professional on Sunday), and then there's the Monday night game, along with maybe a few more. But even with other sports, there are da
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Don't you dare turn off my curling match for some stupid baseball game!
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It may or may not be a sport. What's clear is that it has no more value than a sport. It's just utterly contrived competition to keep us distracted. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your perspective, but ultimately it's the same thing whether it's sports or video games.
I don't know why you'd go to a sports bar to watch Starcraft when you could play it at home. And I don't know why you'd go to a sports bar to watch baseball when you could organize a pick up game yourself.
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"The categories proposed by Roberts at al. are staged; games of chance do not require any skill or strategy (dice games, coin tosses), games of strategy may or may not involve chance but do not involve physical skill (chess, go, poker), and games of physical skill require skill, and may or may not involve chance or strategy. Amusingly, this would place [video] games in the same category as footraces, boxing, and soccer – that of ph
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I'll tell you right now, that practically any bar you are at, sport's or not, will gladly change the channel to whatever brings in the most customers and gives them the most business. I've seen sports bars show X-Files, Sex in the City, Battlestar Galactica, instead of their normal sports because having 40 people watching their favorite TV show and drinking tru
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I want them to try it in a london pub during the world cup...
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At least those are more entertaining than baseball.
Re:Still not a sport, try as you may.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never understood how FPS capture-the-flag games that had a good active spectator mode, like Tribes, etc. never caught on as a spectator sport with video gamers and traditional sports fans alike. It seems like they've got everything your average sports fan would enjoy. a medium size squad of players who have specific positions to fill. quick turnovers, last minute saves, plenty of opportunity for both team tactical dynamics AND individual heroics to affect the match, etc. Easy-to-explain goals and dynamics that don't becoming boring (unless the map encourages turtling).
Seems like it's almost custom-built to be a great spectator sport.
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Regardless, this baseball game needs some new maps instead of these boring re-textures.
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Funny, Baseball is probably one of the only major sport to have any variability in the field. My park even has a hill in center field.
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Sans players that can actually do the things you're watching, I'd say I agree.
I say this from experience as a spectator/non-player. I don't engage in the games, but when I'm visiting friends that do I find the screen very much like a movie with no plot and mildly entertaining.
Right up until I hear the voice of that creepy thirteen year old geek railing on someone. After that it's completely gone. All I can see for player
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The problem with video games is that there's often a lot going on. In basketball or football you have a central point of interest. And you can point all the cameras at that. If you have a game of TF2 you have a spy sneaking in through the vents, an engineer in a duel with a soldier. A medic heavy combo and a demo man circling around the spawn... etc etc.
Pro games are often more team oriented but still to some degree scattered more broadly than one focal ball.
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Give it 30 years and lets revisit.
also... I'd like to mention I don't find someone taking a bullet for another in a video game to be nearly as heroic as taking a hit for someone in a sport. One thing that's great about the physical sports is that there is a very, very clear punishment for playing poorly. You do something stupid in Starcraft, you lose a base, you lose the game... whatever. You d
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Way more action than baseball. At least someone is always doing something, making progress.
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Someone is always making progress in baseball: either the pitcher or the batter. And the spectators actually clap.
Re:Don't you mean.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have seen games that could have been played by 4 players, 2 pitchers and 2 catchers for 90% of the game. Also WTF is up with the lack of a playclock? The game is too slow to be entertaining.
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I have seen games that could have been played by 4 players, 2 pitchers and 2 catchers for 90% of the game.
And I've seen soccer games that could have been decided by just having the shootout to break the 0-0 tie at the beginning of the game instead of the end. That doesn't mean nothing happened.
The game is too slow to be entertaining.
That's to give you more time to drink beer. And it's less likely that you'll miss much when you have to use the restroom.
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Soccer has action, not just boredom.
There is not enough beer in the world to make baseball interesting. Maybe if the players were required to drink it would help.
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Ok, so I've seen soccer games where you could have took away the goals and the goalies and had the two teams kick the ball back and forth for 90% of the game.
See, that argument works just as well. It's the other 10% that you watch the game for. And anyway, a strikeout is pretty exciting if it's the right team getting struck out.
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Re:Don't you mean.. (Score:4, Funny)
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You can do anything you want if you're spectating it from your living room.
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YEAH! Let's have a "My sport sucks a lot less than your sport" flamewar on a geek site!
ALL SPORTS SUCK TO WATCH! Some are tolerable to participate in.
There. Now it's YOUR turn!
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"ALL SPORTS SUCK TO WATCH! Some are tolerable to participate in."
You have never watched Australian rules football.
Honestly it's only weapons away from watching a Quake III arena tournament.
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Full contact chess....?
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Golf? The competitive walking with all the heavy stuff carried by someone else activity?
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(replace "White Sox" with your favorite team that plays a real sport based on physical prowess)
How does baseball fit into your argument?
Well, look on the bright side: he at least picked the one real baseball team in Chicago, and not the Cubs :)
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It's all just an effort to forget about the Bears
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Amen. I guess at some point in life they decided "hmm, is that a bunch of overpaid athletes? i'm going to pretend like everything they do is both important and has a significant impact on my personal life. i will get really excited about their every move and make a big deal out of every action they take. i may even get into shouting matches or even fistfights with other people who don't like my team, becaus
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...just to make sure they don't get confused by all those scary polysyllabic words...
Well played sir, well played.
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I understand how the GP feels. Retarded and confused is a tough way to go through life.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, but it can land you a job as assistant to the Narn ambassador, so it's not a total loss.
Sad to say (Score:3, Insightful)
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Man, if only you bothered to read the article, you'd have seen this quote:
"It was unbelievable," said Jim Biddle, a manager of Bistro 153 in Beaverton, Ore., which hosted its first Barcraft in July. The 50 gamers in attendance "doubled what I'd normally take in on a normal Sunday night."
So even if they aren't buying drinks, they're buying enough stuff to double the bar's normal take.
Besides, if you've ever hung around gamers, beer (or really any alcoholic beverage) is a large part of the modern adult video gaming experience.
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Yup. Kid gamers aren't people you'd want as bar patrons - they'd get in the way and wouldn't bring in much money.
But I agree with you - adult gamers WILL consume beer, and I think they tend to also gravitate towards higher-end beers that are probably more profitable for the bar.
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"[the gamers] doubled what I'd normally take in on a normal Sunday night."
I'm not sure why you'd think video gamers are necessarily teetotal. Many are college student. Sure, they don't generally go to frat parties and drink Bud Light, but plenty of gamers I know drink readily. And the teetotalers aren't likely to show up at a bar, in any case, so I think it could be very profitable. Your mindset is likely why events like this haven't happened in the past.
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I'm not sure why you'd think video gamers are necessarily teetotal. Many are college student. Sure, they don't generally go to frat parties and drink Bud Light, but plenty of gamers I know drink readily. And the teetotalers aren't likely to show up at a bar, in any case, so I think it could be very profitable. Your mindset is likely why events like this haven't happened in the past.
And even the teetotallers will buy a few non-alc drinks and a plate of nachos or something.
Back when those little trivia boxes were all the rage, a half-dozen of us were regulars at the local bar, and while most of us didn't "drink", the bar made enough money from us that our table was always waiting when we got there.
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As part of said demographic I bet you are wrong as hell. I drink like a fish, so do most of my geek friends. We also all have wives/girlfriends though.
Re:Sad to say (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't a shot, it's a potion of +1STR, +1CON(Side effects may include; but are not limited to, -1DEX, +1d6 illusory CHA, -1d6WIS).
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+1STR, +1CON(Side effects may include; but are not limited to, -1DEX, +1d6 illusory CHA, -1d6WIS).
More Strength, More Confidence, Less Dexterity, More Confusion, Less Wisdom. Yeah... that sums up being drunk.
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And yet it's so nerdy that some of us would try it on principle. I probably would, just for laughs.
"Let's see ... Amber Harvest, Sultry Redhead, Hoofeweizen, Potion of Stats!? I'll try that this time."
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There actually exists a sideparty of the Assembly Demo/Lan/Festival event in Helsinki that's called Boozembly. The very first Assembly events back in 90s were total drinkfests. Maybe that's something Finnish or Nordic but what I've gathered nerds generally are more wasted (and not only on alcohol) than regular people.
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I don't know what world you live in. People go to bars and they drink and eat. If they are going to nurse a drink, might as well stay at home since they are a bunch of introverts. People who watch Starcraft are like anyone else, they are going to go out with their friends and drink. I've actually gone to MLGs...so I know you are clueless on what this demographic is like.
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Said demographic is hardly stingy. Kids that grew up on video games are now adults. Not 18, not 19. 30 year olds. Many of them have quite a bit of disposable income. Many of them drink.
And here's another fun thing. Drunk gamers do not tend to be the violent, confrontational types when they get drunk. Drunk gamers aren't at risk of getting into brawls because one team or another won or lost. Sports fans riot after big matches. Gamers do not. I'm guessing a bar full of nerds watching Starcraft is a
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"It was unbelievable," said Jim Biddle, a manager of Bistro 153 in Beaverton, Ore., which hosted its first Barcraft in July. The 50 gamers in attendance "doubled what I'd normally take in on a normal Sunday night."
The expansion of Starcraft spectatorship into the US is great. Now there is even more motivation to pay money to Blizzard while I nurse failed dreams of becoming a pro-gamer.
Still no channel for it on TV (Score:2)
Over 1,000 channels on my cable box, several hundred of them dedicated to sports. And not *one* dedicated to videogame competitions. So apparently a pretty niche market (though personally, I would love to be able to spectate Halo tournaments, Arena battles in MMO's, etc.). For that matter, almost no videogames have any kind of "spectator" mode for players who just want to watch (and not participate).
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Well, I recently got into StarCraft II, and I actually enjoy seeing how incredibly well pros play the game and how all over the place the action is, compared to my typical games on the ladder.
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I'd be frustrated if I couldn't hear the commentary about WHY it's good play, or what brilliant feat of timing, control, or other skill the players just did ... because I sure as hell am not good enough at Starcraft to even recognize it. Announcers make sports more fun to follow for non-savvy spectators, whether it be football or Starcraft.
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I do, dipshit. But I would still like to be able to watch the best in the high level tournaments. You know, kind of like how *you* have a 2-inch dick but still like to watch porn videos with guys who are well-endowed?
Just what I need (Score:3)
Another reason not to go to sports bars.
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Another reason not to go to sports bars.
Well, I daresay it will even more so restrict the number of women attending the bar. As if having a sports bar isn't bad enough, making some part of it isolated to video games will make the problem (lack of female attendance) much worse. Imagine if a rear section were dedicated to...*gasp*...RPGs!
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You are hilarious. Try going to England and watching traditional football. Americans are tame compared to most of the world when it comes to sports. But I doubt you get out much.
Starcraft II? (Score:2)
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From what I gather, there's a big SC2 pro scene, but Brood War is still where most of the money is.
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In Korea, SC:BW is still alive and well. But SC2 is gaining a lot of ground. There are large SC2 tournaments all over the world now. People streaming their ladder matches get thousands of viewers. Major tournaments for SC2 are surpassing 100k viewers. The sequel has caught on really well.
Dammit! (Score:2)
Yet another reason for the bartenders and waitresses to turn hockey off in favor of something else :'(
At least this will be more entertaining than basketball, I hear starcraft players actually incorporate defense into their game plan.
*ducks*
The Ocho! (Score:2)
When will it be on ESPN8?
And lose all their normal sports customers? (Score:3)
How long do you think people who come to the bar to watch football/baseball/hockey/hoops are going to put up with that before finding another bar? Maybe this works after 1am east/10pm west but I still think most bar goers would rather see sports center or a replay of a game. If this is really that popular then someone will open a gaming only bar.
Re:And lose all their normal sports customers? (Score:4, Insightful)
You act as if sports bars put all their TVs on one sport. Having one set of TVs on Starcraft 2 is not going to matter. Besides, businesses will do what makes them money. If they find more people come in for the SC2 events and they make more money...say goodbye to baseball or whoever else is the least represented crowd.
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Really? (Score:2)
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It's worth pointing out... (Score:2)
"It was unbelievable," said Jim Biddle, a manager of Bistro 153 in Beaverton, Ore., which hosted its first Barcraft in July. The 50 gamers in attendance "doubled what I'd normally take in on a normal Sunday night."
Some Locations (Score:5, Informative)
For those interested in where this is actually happening, here's a forum thread which has locations (with map) and descriptions for a tournament this weekend
Barcraft Thread [teamliquid.net]
Barcraft Location Map [google.com]
Some locations: Seattle WA, Toronto, San Diego CA, Washington DC, New York City, Portland OR, Tampa FL, Gainesville FL, Edmonton (Canada), Honolulu, Waterloo (Canada), Chicago, Boston, Dallas TX
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Sports Bras... (Score:2)
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There's a sports-bra changing channel?!
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This isn't a new thing either. When Voyager aired UPN wasn't carried by a lot of cable companies, including the one in my home town at the time. So one of the local sports bar & grills turned Voyager night into an event.
Re:Nerds can socialize...IRL??? (Score:4, Informative)
My friends and I talk about starcraft WITH our lady friends. Why would someone be with a lady friend that can't talk to about their hobbies?
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Because they want to fuck them?
Hell, that's pretty much the only reason any man even pays any attention to a woman...to get in her pants.
You know the old joke, "Why do women have breasts?"
"So men will talk to them..."
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