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Is Gaming Really a Spectator Sport?
njkid1 passed us a link to a GameDaily article on the upcoming DirecTV Championship Game series. There's big prize money at stake, dozens of teams are flocking to the banner of the event, and promoters are talking the event up as something that can't be missed. All of this begs the question: Is competitive gaming a spectator sport? Is the culture of videogaming conducive to mass-market entertainment? Will Counter-Strike matches draw enough of a crowd to maintain advertiser interest at future events? What's your read on this new entry into American gamer culture?
I don't really watch any sport, I find it rather boring to watch.
Sport is something you should do, right? Well if not, then sure, gaming is a spectator sport. Some will like it, other won't.
Honestly, I think presentation matters far more than most people would ever let on ...
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If you only looked at the XFL you'd probably assume that there was no market for professional football in North America
I think (know) you could make 'professional' videogame playing a spectator event but the important part is that the type of game you play must be understandable by the majority of people who have very limited understanding of games, must be fair, and must remain fast paced. I could be wrong, but I suspect that if Blizzard had the option that a person could be a spectator to the Battlegrounds you would see quite a few people watching for reasons other than cheating/
I don't know if it's as much a question of if a game of any type is a spectator sport but more of if the type of person interested in a certain of game is a spectator.
From my experience, I'm not a spectator. Not to say I can't appreciate a good play/move in a sporting/gaming event but the idea of actually watching an entire game doesn't do the trick for me.
Beyond video gaming I've also played paintball and skateboarded for several years. I can't stand to watch either of these. I don't think it has to do with the watchability of the game/sport but rather my ability to watch and not do.
Oddly enough these activities have low draws in TV ratings. Maybe the type of person who skates, plays paintball or plays video games just isn't the same type of person to sit down with a sixer of Bud Light and scream at a TV set.
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There's spectaters for about anything. And sponsors will follow.
People watch bowling. Pool. Pro Paintball. Once late at night I caught a demolition style "race" of trucks pulling campers (the drivers had sponsors).
It doesn't really take much of an audience to get sponsors. The key to lining them up is for the event organizers to make it clear to the sponsors who will be seeing their ads. If the spectaters interests and the sponsors are in agreement, then the deal works. I'd bet one could find sponsors for snail racing because there will be someone watching.
So I see no reason why computer games can't be either.
... do you know how annoying it is to have someone looking over your shoulder offering advice you don't need or criticizing your every move? :)
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PBS, I think, ran a documentary recently that explored the South Korean video game competition phenomenom.
What they kinda found is that you need to know the rules and nuances of the game to appreciate watching it.
If you don't know that, you can't appreciate what's happening before your eyes.
I'm a big sports fan and while I know the rules of practically any competition sport enough to understand what's going on, I have no clue about the finer points of the sports apart from the few sports I watch frequently. The sports I don't know enough about I don't really enjoy watching especially if I'm with someone who does know the finer points. The whole experience just goes right above my head while my friend is hollering about some magical play that just happened.
The same applies to watching video games. I'm a relatively good racing game player and I most definitely enjoy watching the great racers compete against each other, because I "get" how they race so fast. I'm not very good at Halo 2, and I just can't get into watching competitive Halo 2 matches, because I just don't see what's so great about the performance of some of the top players.
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With football, baseball, hockey, etc., I either lack the talent, equipment, playing area, or teammates to frequently play those sports. That's not to say that people only watch these sports because they themselves cannot play them, but imagine if everyone had access to an NFL arena and a half-decent team...and you were 15 years younger with a solid throwing arm. Now, would you rather watch or play football?
:) But we're all in the same room, drinking and cursing when we lose a level. It just wouldn't be the same if I watched the match on television from hundreds of miles away.
Why would I want to sit around watching other people play Counter-Strike when I can go into the other room, fire up the PC, and play the game myself? I can watch the best players duke it out after I've been killed and sent to spectator mode. I imagine gamers would initially be the largest audience for these things...and gamers want to play games.
Gaming *can* be a spectator sport; I love watching my friends play games that I suck at
Not just the game but I think it would also depend on the editing. If you consider a typical FPS match there's lots of things happening at once. How is that presented to the spectators? do we get the same First person tunnel visions that the gamers get, are there fixed cameras that we view?
IMO if you want it to work right you have to take a look at the level design and ensure you can capture all of it and still see the action that's going on. I also think you need to have dedicated "camera men" that can go anywhere to help capture the action with an editor dictating which action to follow. I also think they need to put small Picture in Picture windows of the players faces so we can see their facial and body language. And theres no reason we can't have slow motion replays as well as commentary by people who understand the tactics, strategies, and the background of the players other notable games and records.
I think to get a feel for it a few games would have to be recorded with some time spent editing it for spectator consumption, and once they start to understand what works and what doesn't they try it live.
Some genres would work better then others, racing games for instance would be much easier to show considering it's a real life sport and they can use the same techniques used for showing the sport in real life. Most single player or turn based games would be fairly simple, as well as fighters and other games where the players share a single screen. but IMO stuff like MMOs, RTSs, Shooters, or anything where the players have their own display would take some getting used to before it would be something easily shown on TV.
The problem I've seen is that in prior attempts the producers and editors weren't gamers so they weren't really showing what people were interested in seeing. They'd show the peoples faces, or a close up of the controller, or a quick clip of the players screen and it was more of a nonsensical collage then anything else. The in game action is the most important, but you need to see a good overview, you need to see what all the different players are doing at the same time. the players faces are secondary, you need to see the person behind the on screen character but it shouldn't detract from the on screen action, just give a small view into the emotions their going through, a determined look, a look of disbelief when they die, or excitement when they score a point etc.
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