Is America Ready For Competitive Gaming On TV?

Thanks to GameSpy for its editorial discussing whether America is ready for more TV coverage of competitive gaming, following on from last week's QuakeCon, of which it's claimed: "Television coverage of the event was almost non-existent... although many media outlets did a story on QuakeCon, and taped a few interviews with competitors at the event, none covered the finals in a play-by-play fashion." One editor suggests gaming just isn't appealing enough: ("Deathmatch as we know it just isn't it yet. Visually it isn't too sexy if you're not, yourself, a hardcore player"), whereas a contrasting view is presented by another editor ("The competitive FPS scene in America is also ripe for television. All we'd need to do to get that up and running in the US is copy what the Starleague has done [using StarCraft] in Korea.")

Comments

The Korean analogy...

[u-238]

is so far off and incompatible. The contrasts between pop and traditional culture in Korea and America are so drastic.. it really doesn't behoove any game-TV advocates to make that analogy, as it is very doubtful that an American TV producers would be convinced by this argument.

Although I belive that since it's gotten far enough this ready (QuakeCon, CPL championships, etc.) game coverage TV certainly isn't a far fetched idea - nor far away from becoming a reality. In the next decade, at least, I assure everyone that you'll be hearing about and following champion game players and teams in the same manner we do today with football, baseball etc.

3rd person

[RealityMogul]

I haven't seen any of the QuakeCon setup, but any deathmatch style clips I've seen broadcast on G4 have always been from the first person point of view. That's so boring. You need several camera's that a director can control to watch the action from above or a 3rd person point of view. That way the audience could see where the snipers are camping, and when two people are going to run into each other as they come around a corner. Just like any other sport, where there's a hundred cameras running to get the best shot.

I guess I'd watch it.

[dave-tx]

I watched 45 minutes of "World Series of Poker" last night, so I suppose I'd watch just about anything.

Boring

[Reapy]

The only time I ever saw a deathmatch on tv was when flipping around a while ago on g4 maybe. It was boring as hell. It was either tribes or unreal ctf game. I never got into either of those games too much, so I didn't know the map or the weapons. Which means I didn't know what the hell was going on. They would cut to a 3rd person view of some guy fraggin another, then running on. Then would cut to someone running with the flag. The only thing I saw was a random string of fragging clips that made no sense.

This would be really boring on tv to people who don't even know what these games look like, or what the point of th em are.

There are some ways to help that though. The first thing is to slow the game down to maybe half life speed running speed. Quake and unreal are maybe a bit too fast. It's hard to get an eye for where someone is when they cover ground so quickly, and hard to soak up changes when the field moves around so much.

There needs to be an overhead map showing all the teams on at all time. The map has to color code the teams, show who is carrying the flag, and highlight who we are watching. This would be hard to accomplish on maps with multiple floors.

Another thing they could do, is break down the game for us. Let's say that one guy is running back with the flag, some defenders hot on his heels. Ahead of him in a room, defenders have set up an ambush. Just as he gets in the room, the ambush is sprung, and they start firing on the flag carrier.

But out of the corner, some defenders pop out and frag the ambushers, drop down, and stop the other defenders.

On tv coverage, I'd like to see them pause before the flag guy gets into the room, set up the scene by paning around and showing me the situation, the flag guy is running into an ambush. Show the guy run in, tell me it's lights out for the flag guy, showing me an angle where I am behind the ambushers and can see the flag carrier. Then, as the attacker's friends run in, pan up to show them emerge and start shooting and scoring the frags. Let the announcer show me this blow by blow, explaining it the whole way.

This way, I know where they were on the map, watched them set up the play, and can see how well executed it was.

Basically they just need to break it down and explain it, and pause the action to show us split screens from a 3rd person view, and show someone's uncanny aiming ability from first person view, and also show me health and armor values as the fight progresses.

Either way, the game still isn't going to be fun to watch by someone who has never played the game being shown, as you'll only be watching graphics and animation, and won't appreciate the skill of the players.

In athletics, everyone can relate to someone running fast or jumpping high, you can't relate to a great ability to rail someone after seeing them on the screen across the map through a little tiny window for half a second.

Re:Reminds me...

[hambonewilkins]

My roommate and I were up really early one morning and saw the same. We sat in silence for one minute before my roommate said, "I don't know who's a bigger loser, the guys playing or us for watching."

We turned it off.