Very interesting watch. I would love to see or read more about SK and Sweden's gaming culture. I think the main reason why eSports and competetive gaming haven't grown in America in particular is the negative connatations associated with playing a lot of goddamn video games.

I hate this person but the video brings up some good points.

We need DJC to come back so we can have the gossip that we need to be a real sport.

We need teams to instantly relate to the viewer before they know all the rules of the game. I don't follow all the rules of football, but if I watch it I at least know right off the bat who to root for because they have my city's name written on them. He's right, there's a narrative.

TF2 does have that narrative. We've got B4nny, Harb, PYYYOUR, Mackey, etc. who are big names with big personalities, but you have to watch them play for a while to see it, and there's no difference between this team with 6 random usernames and this other team with 6 random usernames to someone who doesn't already know the players, their story, their playstyles, etc. I watch Invite because I care about how the players play. I get greater joy out of seeing my favorite players go huge and greater excitement out of seeing the players I don't like go huge than I get from a game where I don't know anyone. I don't watch Open because I don't care about the outcome because I don't know any of the players. When we find a way for me to look at two Open teams with 0 players I recognize and I still have a reason to care about the outcome, we will expand to the size of greater eSports.
More LANs, more streaming with facecams, etc. are a good start. I don't know where to go from there, but we have to market players and teams, not the game.

He says in the video that esports lacks story. I think thats completely false. Most commentators ALWAYS bring up a story line for games whether its the first time a player has played the other, or the rivalry/previous match ups two players/teams have had.

He talks as if the second you watch a football game between the giants and whatever team peyton manning is on, you know the brothers entire history, but thats obviously not the case. It can be conveyed well, but you never get the whole picture from the game itself. You usually have to do some investigating on your own if you want the full picture.

For example, flash and Jae dong probably have the biggest rivalry in all of esports, and the commentators are gonna relay that to you. Its the same if you watching a basketball game between the heat and the cavaliers; the commentators (and the fans) are gonna let you know the history, but in both cases you are gonna have to look into it yourself. It sounds to me this guy hasn't watch that much esports at all to say he doesn't know who to cheer for. BTW your always supposed to cheer for Justin Wong.

esports aren't popular because video games aren't respected in the general public as a form of competition between adults; they're still viewed as kids stuff

how is this not obvious

We would need teams to keep a name/location for long periods of time. So people can root for their local (closest) teams because people instinctively want to root for the home team. We would also need to have each player stream so people can put a face to the name, watch them play, and get involved on a facial expression or body language level, it makes it more personal. People will then also start to root for people who act like them or have the same "ticks".

Sorry if some of these points were already brought up, but they are important.

That doesn't mean there's no room to grow for us. 90% of TF2 players don't play comp and don't watch it. 99% of people who respect eSports don't watch TF2 comp. We can do better, and we aren't an inherently worse game than LoL or DOTA. Of all the eSports out there, it should probably be easiest for us because of the emphasis on team play in TF2. While games like CS and CoD are about single players hitting heads, TF2 opens up a realm of potential narrative for teams because it's the collective team that matters, and at the same time star players can stand out.

The next generation of adults will all be gamers or ex gamers or know gamers. Everyone has a console these days if they are under 40.

Have you watched much CS? The game is very team oriented, that being said there are tons of "clutch" moments in that game but the same can be said about TF2 when someone goes nuts and gets a 4-5-6k ect ect

No, I don't watch CS, because I don't know the players, and I don't care about them enough to learn the metagame. :/ That's exactly the problem I think we can fix. Maybe they can do it too, but my point is that there's no reason to stop trying to grow TF2. It does have the potential to get tens of thousands of viewers, or more.

CS is more teamwork oriented than I gave it credit for at first, but i definitely think tf2 takes more cohesion and communication than CS at the highest levels

just having a medic puts TF2 200% more team oriented than any standard FPS.

Yeah, the problem with TF2 however and this seems to be certain maps as well, is that the game can get pretty stalematey. Especially maps like Gravelpit/Metalworks last etc. when it does get really slow, the commentators can run out of stuff to say and then just have to wait it out till someone makes a play. We need faster paced maps and perhaps a map that can be made with quicker respawn times that is 5cp as well, but gives the attacking team a nice advantage(outside of last).

I find that tf2 commentators do an outstanding job of filling the voids in gameplay with interesting commentary. I'm never bored when watching a tftv cast, even if it is an extremely boring match.

No he didn't, he said that esports lack framework that promotes the story.

And he's right. But the TF2 community correctly identified this as the problem early on, and have been working to fix it. And we've had phenomenal results. Stream viewership is at an all time high, and so are the amount of streamers. Scheduled tf.tv casts look extremely professional, and Bluee's amazing outline plugin has made spectating and casting a hell of a lot easier. The only two other things I'd like to see implemented for spectators is a functional map (which is already in progress, if I remember correctly), and some sort of instant replay function (I have no idea how that'd work).

All other promotion and improvement of the game would happen outside of the actual game and casts. I liked the idea of compiling statistics for high level players in order to give spectators some perspective.

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I agree with this, as having teams based in a local area with players from that area is pretty cool and can create more of a story behind the team. The Portland Burnsiders that eXtine started is cool and everything, but the hardest part about having a team within the same area is finding players who play and know about competitive.

And about the streaming, I agree and slightly disagree. Putting a name to the face is definitely cool, but for people (i.e. myself) who are shy or don't like being the center of attention, streaming is something that we'd not necessarily want to even try.

i love this channel one of my youtube favs

I don't want to see this happen because people's feelings get hurt easily enough here, imagine how PC and "gentle" everything would have to be. Every time someone made a joke at someone else's expense or unleashed the good ol' trashcan, it would be labeled as "trolling" and beds would be shit all over the globe because of one hurt feeling.

I mean it's already starting to happen now.

Would be nice if Casters focused on doing 3rd person over the shoulder views, and Sky views of Matches. For the very same reason mentioned in the video that 1. It's not ready and obvious to tell how a team is doing and 2. It can be a bit nauseating. Their's been more than a few times I see a roamer go in on the combo at Mid kills the Demo and Med, and 1 of their scouts gets a 3rd kill but they end up being wiped at mid somehow, and that's just it idk how they got wiped at mid I was too busy watching how well 1 player was doing

The comments about camera angles is a very big point.

I work as a cameraman filming sports games for my local TV station, and even for a small production, there are a lot of cameras involved, and switching between them all to find the best shot is very important.

I have been thinking of some way to get better angles in TF2 to make watching streams more interesting for a while.

What's needed are several cameramen. Each team gets it's own cameraman. Each cameraman has a view of all 6 players (in first person mode) on his assigned team. He can then pick which player is doing something interesting at the time and send it up to the main cameraman. He then takes whatever camera angle is the most interesting (whether it's a first person angle of someone on either teams, or a top down overview of the map, or a "cinematic" angle from where the action is. He can then push that to the stream and the viewers and announcers can see it.

This would take a lot of work, and isn't technically possible at the moment, but it would make watching a lot more interesting.

I also believe that first person camera angles should be used less, but are still very important in order to see just how intense matches can be, or how much skill is involved in making certain shots.

I dunno about that, I mean look at rivalries between sports teams/areas, they can get pretty heated

I think there should also be less "live" streams. Since pauses and live streaming comes with a few pitfalls. If they would do the cast, then cut it all together with nice camera angles, slow downs and some prep time to go over what's going to be discussed it would make for a much better production.

Things I took from the video that could be applied to tf2:

-A highlight/instant replay function that some third party could organize as a match is played to be shown during half time/after the match in slow motion would be awesome and add to the experience

-His point about helmet cam football was good. Has anybody tried showing 2 players at the same time on stream? Somehow streaming from 2 computers and restreaming them together somehow? I don't know whether it would work or look good or anything but without delays/people onsite to advise big plays/etc a lot of things get lost and being able to see more than one player/ one free cam could aid this... maybe?

-TF2 needs numbers. Much like batting averages or even just weight and height, there has to be some way of showing things about a player through numbers. Accuracy during matches for scouts? I don't really know what you could use; even a regulated MGE ladder between players in a division to get an idea as an outsider of dm ability would be good. Quantitative things that can be applied to how a game will go.

-Player Biographies. I know this has been talked about in the past but a page/site with teams and their players histories/videos of big plays/pictures/anything really would help to get the personalities that exist across to newcomers. Could be sourced from many writers and would not have to be every division ever or anything to be effective

-While people always complain about controversy and drama like what happened with justin in the ESEA cast mumble, it is not in itself a bad thing for the scene. Things like rivalries and eccentric personalities shouldn't be covered up but allowed to flourish in a safe manner. Helps people relate to the players.

tl;dr Numbers, Biographies, instant replay, split screen, nurture drama

A lot of what people are talking about regarding teams is something we're trying to accomplish.

https://www.facebook.com/PortlandBurnsiders <- Needs a lot of work :/

We're looking to give players + eSports fans a reason to build a connection with us.

cs:go is entertaining to watch, maybe tf2 can take some things from cs:go
i feel like casts of matches are too simple, idk, there can be more things to cast???

first person games are inherently shittier for casual spectating

a radar or map of some kind to at least show positions of teammates is almost required for anyone who doesn't know the game to keep track of the overall situation

3rd person views can give a better sense of the overall fight but then you lose sight of a lot of the actual player skill

I definitely think DotA 2 is doing a great job of telling "stories", both with their casters and how the teams promote/interact with one another. Some of the player in DotA are so famous that basically everyone around the world who plays the game knows them and the Chinese respect them so much they will call them [letter]-God. Like Loda is often called L-God over there. I think Valve understands the importance of storytelling too, since that is basically what their documentary for DotA 2 coming out next month basically is. (trailer here if interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-RMUp8M54)

Probably the closest thing TF2 has ever had to that is Carnage, to a degree a lot of the non-F2P pubbers actually still know who he is and some even think he's still the best Scout in TF2 because TF2's competitive storytelling is that weak.

I've seen him in The Furry Pound quite a few times. Maybe I can nab him.