In most RL sports the camera (and the audience) follow the play by either following the player (skiing, boxing, gymnastics) or following the ball/puck (football, rugby, hockey). This is practical because they take place in a defined area such as a track, a field, a pool or a ring or similar. In esports a lot of the action takes place in complex areas with multiple avenues for movement and concealment which are great for players but not so great for viewers.
I've watched plenty of streams where I follow a player through a match but I've no idea what's going on in the rest of the match. Fortnite lets you replay a match from all the players perspectives and I've sometimes used that to see what happened in a match after I've played it. I can't see it being terribly practical to do that in real time though.
Having said that if someone wanted to televise Fall Guys I'd be watching!
When Rocket League developer Pysonix went down the esports route, it killed the interesting avenues it was going down with differently sized and specced arenas in favour of keeping them identical for the sake of competitive balance. Boring! I rather liked the upper floor on each side of original Neo Tokyo, and how Wasteland was much larger than normal and had tilty bits. Both of these were reconfigured to be standard and were all the worse for it. Meanwhile other experiments were/are no longer allowed in ranked play at all, instead ghettoised to modes where they're rarely played. Rocket League is still an all-timer of a game, but one that's seemingly no longer interested in extending itself, gameplay wise. Sigh.
Am sure wiser minds than mine have suggested this but a solution to the problem of high-speed cuts and perspective changes in FPS esports coverage would be to develop new broadcast-only, third-person presentation modes which a specialist producer could then utilise to more clearly convey the inherent narratives of the match.
Sure spectators might lose some of the sense of what it's like to be playing the game themselves but at the same time it might help attract a more mainstream audience.
And it's not like regular sports have suffered any from not showing the first person perspective of its players...
While I agree with most of what you say here, I think things are better now. You mentioned the first Dota 2 International, well, go on twitch and watch a Dota 2 tournament or even a streamer playing by himself. You can hover over the skills of every hero in the game and every item. There's a quick explanation of the heroe's main skill, and detailed description for the skills and items and many more things. I was dazzled by it the first time I saw it, it is really helpful! Great article as always.
In no way answering your question from your article, but I did want to mention that there are some benefits to eSports. I'm a primary school teacher and have started doing an eSports club where I teach. when I announced it in assembly, there was a sea of blank faces, and It was only when I used the word 'Video Games' did many little pairs of eyes light up. There has been a lot of research into the benefits of esports in terms of team building, researching and problem solving, planning for future careers and learning about digital citizenship. I'm working very hard to make sure we're not just a club where we just play video games, but we also research the skills and tools needed to improve, the training required and the marketing required to boost our teams. There is also an organisation, the British Esports Federation which is a not-for profit, set up to help schools and colleges with their initiatives. It is early days, but I have already found out I am in no way as good as any of the children at Mario Kart.
I have been following Arsenal since I was little kid. I mean I remember the invincible team with Bergkamp and Henry and Candela and Ljunberg and all the others. Being in Colombia makes things difficult because people do not understand why I like an english football team that never wins instead of, say, Junior (hometown glory thingy) or Nacional (Never Millonarios. Fuck em!) I can relate to the feeling of not understanding shite.
Take for instance League of Legends. It is about the most played esport (or at least the most successful) and I was there, sitting with my mates and they were watching the final or such, and just the lexicon of the transmission was baffling: Jungle this, Lane that, carry here, carry there, something or other. With little or no explanation as to what effect anything meant. As if, they knew that those watching knew exactly what it all meant. I guess it happens the same with overwatch matches.
While Proper Football plays, at least, the commentators have the decency to explain things (I suppose the speed of the game allows for this to happen, especially with offsides and the dreaded VAR) and the barrier for entry is lower than most other american sports (have you noticed how american sports expect you to understand everything because "how could you not know that!" and I guess that's why we don't understand Nascar but they are starting to follow F1 (actual racing of course)
Anyway. One day Arsenal will play again as it used to do. In the meantime I guess we will just continue to not understand things that are supposed to be common lore for the common folks.
It is fascinating how sports do adapt to becoming more watchable. Table tennis was previously played at such speed that they had to increase the size of the ball in order to slow down the game to become more television friendly. Maybe the world of Esports could take the F1 route and produce a show like Drive to Survive. Unless you are absolutely immersed in the world of Formula 1, all the different narratives and team rivalries, technical challenges and personal journeys would get lost.
I work in the broadcasting of sports and something I’m going to tell you is that it’s an aging industry of people who work on productions and broadcasts of sports and a lot of those people with Production experience have been transitioned into taking what they Have always done with live sports and pushing it to esports. A lot of the production people are learning the games and things in real time and commentators tend to be inexperienced with calling esports, or inexperienced as commentators in general, so it’s hard for producers to get the guys to relay that information when a) they don’t know it and b) their commentators don’t know how to break it down simpler because they are former players and too entrenched in the jargon.
In most RL sports the camera (and the audience) follow the play by either following the player (skiing, boxing, gymnastics) or following the ball/puck (football, rugby, hockey). This is practical because they take place in a defined area such as a track, a field, a pool or a ring or similar. In esports a lot of the action takes place in complex areas with multiple avenues for movement and concealment which are great for players but not so great for viewers.
I've watched plenty of streams where I follow a player through a match but I've no idea what's going on in the rest of the match. Fortnite lets you replay a match from all the players perspectives and I've sometimes used that to see what happened in a match after I've played it. I can't see it being terribly practical to do that in real time though.
Having said that if someone wanted to televise Fall Guys I'd be watching!
Hey Nate,
When Rocket League developer Pysonix went down the esports route, it killed the interesting avenues it was going down with differently sized and specced arenas in favour of keeping them identical for the sake of competitive balance. Boring! I rather liked the upper floor on each side of original Neo Tokyo, and how Wasteland was much larger than normal and had tilty bits. Both of these were reconfigured to be standard and were all the worse for it. Meanwhile other experiments were/are no longer allowed in ranked play at all, instead ghettoised to modes where they're rarely played. Rocket League is still an all-timer of a game, but one that's seemingly no longer interested in extending itself, gameplay wise. Sigh.
Mike
Am sure wiser minds than mine have suggested this but a solution to the problem of high-speed cuts and perspective changes in FPS esports coverage would be to develop new broadcast-only, third-person presentation modes which a specialist producer could then utilise to more clearly convey the inherent narratives of the match.
Sure spectators might lose some of the sense of what it's like to be playing the game themselves but at the same time it might help attract a more mainstream audience.
And it's not like regular sports have suffered any from not showing the first person perspective of its players...
(Very much enjoying the newsletter!)
While I agree with most of what you say here, I think things are better now. You mentioned the first Dota 2 International, well, go on twitch and watch a Dota 2 tournament or even a streamer playing by himself. You can hover over the skills of every hero in the game and every item. There's a quick explanation of the heroe's main skill, and detailed description for the skills and items and many more things. I was dazzled by it the first time I saw it, it is really helpful! Great article as always.
In no way answering your question from your article, but I did want to mention that there are some benefits to eSports. I'm a primary school teacher and have started doing an eSports club where I teach. when I announced it in assembly, there was a sea of blank faces, and It was only when I used the word 'Video Games' did many little pairs of eyes light up. There has been a lot of research into the benefits of esports in terms of team building, researching and problem solving, planning for future careers and learning about digital citizenship. I'm working very hard to make sure we're not just a club where we just play video games, but we also research the skills and tools needed to improve, the training required and the marketing required to boost our teams. There is also an organisation, the British Esports Federation which is a not-for profit, set up to help schools and colleges with their initiatives. It is early days, but I have already found out I am in no way as good as any of the children at Mario Kart.
You know...
I have been following Arsenal since I was little kid. I mean I remember the invincible team with Bergkamp and Henry and Candela and Ljunberg and all the others. Being in Colombia makes things difficult because people do not understand why I like an english football team that never wins instead of, say, Junior (hometown glory thingy) or Nacional (Never Millonarios. Fuck em!) I can relate to the feeling of not understanding shite.
Take for instance League of Legends. It is about the most played esport (or at least the most successful) and I was there, sitting with my mates and they were watching the final or such, and just the lexicon of the transmission was baffling: Jungle this, Lane that, carry here, carry there, something or other. With little or no explanation as to what effect anything meant. As if, they knew that those watching knew exactly what it all meant. I guess it happens the same with overwatch matches.
While Proper Football plays, at least, the commentators have the decency to explain things (I suppose the speed of the game allows for this to happen, especially with offsides and the dreaded VAR) and the barrier for entry is lower than most other american sports (have you noticed how american sports expect you to understand everything because "how could you not know that!" and I guess that's why we don't understand Nascar but they are starting to follow F1 (actual racing of course)
Anyway. One day Arsenal will play again as it used to do. In the meantime I guess we will just continue to not understand things that are supposed to be common lore for the common folks.
It is fascinating how sports do adapt to becoming more watchable. Table tennis was previously played at such speed that they had to increase the size of the ball in order to slow down the game to become more television friendly. Maybe the world of Esports could take the F1 route and produce a show like Drive to Survive. Unless you are absolutely immersed in the world of Formula 1, all the different narratives and team rivalries, technical challenges and personal journeys would get lost.
I work in the broadcasting of sports and something I’m going to tell you is that it’s an aging industry of people who work on productions and broadcasts of sports and a lot of those people with Production experience have been transitioned into taking what they Have always done with live sports and pushing it to esports. A lot of the production people are learning the games and things in real time and commentators tend to be inexperienced with calling esports, or inexperienced as commentators in general, so it’s hard for producers to get the guys to relay that information when a) they don’t know it and b) their commentators don’t know how to break it down simpler because they are former players and too entrenched in the jargon.