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Documentary about Professional Gaming
Simon Bysshe writes "My name is Simon Bysshe, I'm 22 & am currently studying film at the Bournemouth Arts Institute in the UK. For the last 3 months I've been working on a unique new freely downloadable film about the advent of professional gaming [there's also a BitTorrent mirror via GameTab]. The main purpose of the documentary 'Modern Day Gamer 2' is to ask whether we will ever see gaming become a mainstream spectator sport. The film features the UK based Four Kings Wolfenstein team as they compete at the Quakecon gaming event in Dallas Texas. The film also features interviews with John Romero, Sujoy Roy (iGamesUK), Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood (Splash Damage) & many other industry/gaming figures. This is the sequel to my original documentary which focused on the growth of gaming as a sociable hobby & received over 50,000 downloads worldwide. Running time: 17minutes 47seconds. Filesize : 157MB. Format: WMV."
Running time: 17minutes 47seconds. Filesize : 157MB. Format: WMV.
How about a non-MS or non-proprietary format? Seriously, I am not trying to troll. As much as people gripe about how bad and inferior all MS formats are, I sure do see lots of WMA and WMV all over the place.
The main purpose of the documentary 'Modern Day Gamer 2' is to ask whether we will ever see gaming become a mainstream spectator sport.
The reason specatator sports are so popular is that it takes a lot of years of effort and strenous training to be competetive at professional level. People enjoy these sports vicariously. That is not the case with gaming. Gaming is something people like to take active part in. That's the whole reason games are so popular. It would take lot of years of practise for someone to achieve a professional level 'worth watching' status in games and by then that game would be outdated.
Anyway, I will correct my opinions if there are wrong by watching the documentary. Thanks!
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
will become a spectator sport for strategy games. Most people, except for those who are quite into the game, don't have the attention span to watch people set up their bases etc. They just want the battles, in most cases. Most well-played strategy games can go on for well over an hour, and I just don't think that people are willing to wait around for the big battles. They'd rather just see the highlight reels. But for action games, I think that there is a potential for this to happen, because, right off the bat, you are able to start fighting, without having to build up defenses, which means that people get the action immediately. Also, you respawn as soon as you die, so the length of the action can be controlled.
Crushing dreams at the speed of sarcasm
and it said to WTFM
"Professional Gamer?" What, they are state licensed?
But seriously, with all that press coverage, and repetitive stress injuries, expect to see PG's form basic organizational structures, like unions, licensing boards, nickname boards!, and stuff, before developers/computer programmers ever develop just one of those.. sheesh!
Cover your eyes and click this link!
instead of "Modern Day Gamer 2"
"Modern Day Gamers Go Gold"
I once saw about 200 people crowded around an arena watching a collection of gladiators fighting to the death for a cash prize. We were all placing bets and shouting at the combatants. Some people actually missed work to come witness the battles.
None of us were actually "there", at least not physically: it all transpired in the virtual world of "Ultima Online".
That was three years ago. I wonder how large the gatherings are now?
I would say video gaming will never become as big of a spectator sport as the big main sports (NFL,NBA,NHL,MLB) because of one missing ingredient. That ingredient is the fans being emotionally attached to thier team and its players past and present because they are real people. When Brett Favre retires from football fans will feel emotional about it, some packer fans may even cry.
These kinds of articles (or documentaries, as the case may be) really beg the question "Why do people watch other people in activities?"
Now we have all been conditioned to answer because its entertaining to watch highly skilled professionals compete for the love of the game (stay with me), or something like that. But really, I would venture to guess that it has a lot to do with identity and community.
For example, if you watch sports, don't you sometimes or maybe even regularly mention events in the sports world to others who are interested (or maybe even not)? Do you ever consider yourself a fan, and attach it to your identity (like at a party you might say "yeah, I'm a such-and-such fan" or "I'm a big fan of sports X and Y")?
Likewise, how often do you watch events with other people? How often do you go with other people or meet them at an event? And don't you talk about it with certain groups of people? I am not a sports person, so please forgive me if you are a lone spectator. I am sure there are some.
This all revolves around what really drives masses to be spectators. I would venture to guess that their identity and the community (which are in some ways tied together for a lot people, maybe everyone) make them spectators. I would even go further to say that without these aspects, mass market spectator sports would not be quite so mass market. Sorry, I didn't watch the video - just some thoughts from a non-spectator.
"The main purpose of the documentary 'Modern Day Gamer 2' is to ask whether we will ever see gaming become a mainstream spectator sport."
Ahem, JAPAN.
Heck, we'll even throw S.Korea in there.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
A pretty good book to read if you are interested in gaming professionally, is Monster Gaming, by Ben Sawyer. Not only does it outline the competitive online gaming community, it delves into mods and other cool stuff like customization & configuration. The book has a foreword by Angel Munoz, the founder of the CPL, and cover art by Id legend Paul Steed. While Monster Gaming is not about becoming a CPL athlete, it is about being a better gamer.
The number of wicked web links in there is enough for any gamer to drool over. I've been thinking of doing a Slashdot book review of it, too.
To avoid an unnecessary page load on their server, here's a direct link to the bittorrent version.
One thing I've never understood is the rage over football (both), basketball, etc... Why the hell would I watch people play something I could be doing myself?
However, I listen to the Team Sportscast Network when I'm bored, and also hang out in #tsn. I like it there because it's a community that PLAYS what they love, not just listen. People who know the game first hand; a relaxed community which knows the pros personally.
I find watching games more interesting than conventional sports because the game is always changing -- they aren't limited by real life physics and laws. The rules and gameplay are always evolving overtime.
Although rules change with videogames, i find game rules to be much more appealing. Sports that require referees take away from the game, along with judged sports. The computer counts and grades players in VGs, not some dude with a whistle. If anything, I find videogames to be a more relevant sport than games that rely on referees for fundamental parts of the game such as "foul balls", "penalties" and "strikes".
In the end though, I don't really want videogames to become mainstream sports -- it'll just end up controlled and abused like the rest of the sports. Don't get me wrong, I like tournaments, and I also want the very best players making enough for a living. What I don't look forward to is gamers becoming commercialized, overglorified, cocky jerks (it's partially there already) like other other sports "heros".
I used to play Desert Combat a lot a while back. I started playing with a clan (to get the whole 'teamplay' experience) who were involved in gaming league. During these games, there would be two spectators present, one on either team. These two specs would do a play by play of the game, both in contact with each other at the same time, and they would shoutcast these matches to the masses. These broadcasts also had a slight time delay to avoid cheating by either team.
One of these shoutcast groups is Team Sports Network you can listen to live games, or download past matches.
In case of slashdoting here is a still of the John Romero interview.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
But some may say that the players, sat at their PCs are the personalities.
:/
Having spectated at a few UK Lanparties, I can say that the 'players' are genuinely a mixed bunch and generally a very personable lot. (After all people can *hit* you if you misbehave on a lan).
The thing that makes major players so popular in many sports is marketing - in the UK we only have to look at David Beckham to know how true this is.
Having said that, Beckham is working for and living with a team in Spain.............go figure
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
You misunderstand. Windows is not evil, just crappy. It's Microsoft that's evil.
You have edited his comment so that it seems he is saying that it doesn't take effort to play games at the professional level.
This is not even close to what he wrote. Since you seem determined to misrepresent the author's actual sentiment (or maybe you just misread it and didn't realize that your edit grossly distorts what he wrote?), here is the complete thought:
(Emphasis mine.) Please, read it again. You will see that the author stated that IT IS NOT THE CASE THAT PEOPLE ENJOY VIDEO GAMES VICARIOUSLY. The author does NOT state that it is not the case that it takes effort to play at the professional level.
Please, read the comment you are replying to next time. Slashdot thanks you.
You might want to check it out at
http://www.shoryuken.com/evolution
Apparently the event was a success and many gamers had fun hanging out and taking part in the tourneys. The site has a forum called EVO2k3 Aftermath where you can view their personal experiences about the whole event. It seems pretty interesting and would be a perfect example of games becoming mainstream. On a side note, these gamers videocam their games and of great players in their own efforts to improve themselves.
The site also offers a DVD of their previous tournaments (they have been running national tournaments for more than 5 years), so gamers can watch top players go at it at their own leisure. Judging from their success, I don't doubt professional gaming is not possible.
Grab mplayer and install it. Run mencode to transcode the WMV file to a different format.
:)
Once that's done, head on over to the BitTorrent website and grab the software. Run a tracker and leave a seed open.
Then post it to Slashdot in a message where you can say, "look at me -- 20 minutes of work and a little CPU time, and I made an open format version of a movie that everyone can enjoy -- plus the video's encoded smaller because of the better codec!"
This will probably net you some great karma, in addition to making your initial format question moot. It's all a matter of effort and motivation
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Most people don't give a sports match their full attention. They might raptly watch the replays, they might focus more the game when it gets tense, but most people are hanging out with their friends at the same time, or eating, or switching between ESPN and CBS.
The way that televised sports cope with the monotony of the wait for action is with commentary. They'll step out of the game to give stats, a retired professional will give his take on the rookie at bat or the down just completed. Most people don't want to watch players set up their bases, but they also don't much care to watch the football players line up time and time again. Most soccer fans don't pay nearly as much attention when the ball is in midfield as they do when the players are poised for a shot on goal.
Conclusion 1: Game spectating needs to be something you can do in a group before it will catch on.
Conclusion 2: There needs to be a mechanism to give commentary and instant replays to the viewers.
Conclusion 3: Game spectating has to be flexible. It has to be something that you can give part of your divided attention to, not the sole activity of a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
You might not know this but 3ivx jsut released a 2 pass mp4 encoder on Tuesday. When using the proper settings, 3ivx creates pretty sweet video with good quality/size results.
a d/index.html
I know previour reports indicated otherwise but the reviewers didn't use the proper compression settings.
They also have an mp2 transcoder called Diva.
Http://www.3ivx.com
http://www.3ivx.com/downlo
Enjoy.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Also, why is it .zip compressed! Any decent video and audio compression includes its own entropy encoding, so that a .zip or whatever will produce virtually no size savings.
.zip worked, that'd tell you that you did something wrong!
If you had a file where
My video compression blog
"Why the hell would I watch people play something I could be doing myself?"
do you listen to music? you could play instruments too.
watch movies? you could make your own with a digital camera's trivial film mode.
ever notice that people involved in sports tend to be avid fans of professional sports? ever notice budding musicians tend to listen to other, more accomplished musicians?
it's because they can't do what the pros can, at least not yet. they're able to command massive salaries because the audience is watching, and the audience wouldn't waste their time to watch bush leaguers.
Computer gaming cant be as succesful with spectators as "normal" sports (football rugby etc) because: traditionally people support the team for the town they live in. gives u a sense of pride, loyalty, patriotism whatever. but a main concept of online gaming is that you can form a team with anyone anywhere. most clans dont have anyone from the same town/city, and often people from different countries. so like, which team/clan would you choose to support? I'm pretty sure it will get popular amongst people like me and you who play the games, but wont hit the mainstream.
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
I'm sorry I am going to have to get some of those pinhead moderators to waste points on me here as I hear crybaby gamers all the time whine and moan. (Usually over things they don't understand because they can't stop playing long enough to read and research.)
Gaming is *NOT* a sport!! Shit, you waste away hours leading to weeks of your life twitching only a few muscles for a digital score...sporty as a Gremlin next to a Porsche. The use of the term "professional" when speaking about a gamer is just sickening and demeaning to *REAL* professionals like the programmers who coded the game or the Network engineers at the ISP who maintain connections so the _game_ can be played. Tournaments are great, but lets put things in perspective. If you win a ribbon at your local or even state fair for your chili, do you think that gives you the right to start putting yourself on the same level as a real professional such as Emril Lagasse?
I love to spend a good 3 hours playing an online game, but in keeping touch with reality it's just a game. When I'm done thats it, I don't try to make it more than what it really is to compensate for a critical lacking in my life. Personally, I would not watch this sort of stuff online or in person with free admission, free food, and free beer. Strikes me kinda like watching golf...you have to be the right kind of person.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)