Welcome to Pleasentville, a cute American town with white picket fences and good old fashioned American values. You are a young child walking along the street when the local priest walks past you on his way back from the Church fair, you were one of the very few families village who didnt go to the church fair and the priest comes over to you and asks how you are doing laddy? (yes hes irish) - You retort, Oh father forgive me for I have sinned. I did not come to the village fair and buy marshmallow squares. The priest takes you into the church and quotes from the bible You run outside and rejoice, your sins have been repented. As you are rejoicing you skip into the road and get run over by an 18 wheel truck, and die with the regret that you never actually got involved, like the Panzerfaust who never shot his load. Fortunately an Axis medic came strolling along and revived you and just like that panzer, you have a second chance!!
The moral to the story is that theres alot more to be had from gaming if you want it. To any of those who have been to CDC or to any other LAN event for that matter and enjoyed yourself you'll understand that you enjoyed yourself because you got involved and put yourself out there, something that there is never enough of in gaming. Cast aside your indecision and do something for your community, and you could have a chapter in the bible too.
The reality of the matter is that for every one person doing something in gaming, there is still the need for five more people. It comes in all shapes and sizes, but the best example I use is that if I miss a Chelsea match I can quickly find a review of the performance. Well what if I wanted to find out how Dignitas were playing? What if I wanted to find out how TLR played 6 months ago in their match against -[101st]-? I cant, gaming can be as entertaining as anything you want to compare it to, but for it to evolve it must have the same amount of facets to it. Whether thats reviews, opinated columns, scouting reports, predictions, pro players analysis, there should always be something to do.
In Sport they'll pay you to do that, in gaming they wont. Thats the harsh reality of what we do, but its getting better. For the minutes of your day you gave up to do something, you enjoy a good outcome even more. I can tell you this for a fact, the hours I've put in over the years are all worth it now that I actually get paid for some of my shoutcasting and the reality of gaming paying my rent is no longer a far fetched concept.
Whilst there arent many getting paid, I can list you those who have originated from Crossfire and gone on to receive benefits from gaming, whether thats a salary like FlyingDJ or writing for prominent gaming sites like evan and bdy or whether its free trips to Denmark like Adacore and Lab or even a free trip to New York like Cash. You can get out from what you put in, however the darkside of it is, if people stop putting in then things turn sour and you become a Quake community.
Quake, one of the worlds greatest inventions has a community so twisted and sour they dont know whether they're alive or dead. The recent announcement that Quake 3 would be at ESWC is proof that they no longer know where their existance lies. On the other hand this community has achieved more than anyone would have given it credit it for 3 years ago, but thats still doesn't stop their being the potential for it to implode, so whether its running a cup, writing a newspost or busting a cheater, pull ya finger out this Christmas and make sure whatever game you still enjoy playing doesn't turn sour!
I'm two weeks at home now :D
Look at this site. Everyone can make news, articles, columns... only a few bother. Unfortunately. More make journal posts or comments. That seems to be safer...
Ow, I don't think you should do it to get something back personally. When I played at times I did make (news)posts, run a tournament but it's not like you get anything in return. So that would be the wrong motivation and quickly disappoint people. Just do it because it's fun. Because it is (mostly).
Reg at Cybernations tosser :<
.. Harry Potter will fly by, flick his wand and hooray eSport is a part of everyday entertainment.
Why isn't it popular now? Because to make it really popular (it would mean cup finals transmitted live on TV and stuff like that) it would need to be seriously demanded from the masses. Gaming is strongly dominated by young people who aren't the decisive force when it comes to media demands. But in 10-20 years they will be and that's when eSports will be on TV, there will be a lot more gamers who could survive out of gaming etc.
Sorry if my engrish is bad, I'm still a bit hangovered, I hope you got the point.
Nice column :)
I leave stuff like that to ppl who dont get addicted to gaming so easily.
I've done multiple interviews and overviews in the past but the feedback was usually poor, with only several views and even less comments. The fun quickly vaporises when you don't see anything for it in return.
On the other hand, I do see a huge market for video interviews, my video interview with TosspoT at CPC2 was a huge succes and I personally want to do many, many more similar things in the future (ignore CDC3 on that regard, I was somewhat blown away that I was allowed to cast there)
[flag=uk Bdy ]
Bdy would often ask my opinion or advice or something he had just written. One of these occasions, I truly liked what he wrote and decided to publish the article on SK where it would get a lot more attention.
Within the same day, possibly a couple of hours, he was poached by Fnatic. Now he's compensating for writing, or so he leads to me to be believe!
[flag=se SK Gaming ]
Due to my persistence, just about all of the SK website staff are now paid. CoD4 is now covered. The SK site will soon be covering more 'gamer culture' types of content, including hardware reviews etc. There are little bits here and there, which together makes the experience more enjoyable.
If you can't change something yourself, then try and convince the people who can.
In all fairness I should be writing for something like Gotfrag or regularly putting stuff up on eSreality. Then I could be completely and utterly subjective/objective as I want without consequence. But for one reason or another, I haven't.
I think it's because I've no real restraint on SK, which at times, has backlashed when I've written something that was partially scathing or over the top. If they was a proper editor or a system in place, I would be at least challenged to an extent before anything like that saw the light of day.
I've a very high tolerance to whine and negative criticism, which is probably a good thing for a writer in general, but bad because it makes me less aware of how much damage I could do.
[bThe negative[/b] ]
Although I never set out to be rewarded, I was merely wanting to help the ET community. No reward, basically puts off 90% of people even bothering. As much as it's a standard, it doesn't make it right. You don't go do a job without knowing full well how you're going to be compensated.
The majority of the eSports press, especially on team sites, are just glorified fans, who can in fact not write at all. Staff (higher up, I'm talking like general managers etc as well) can be ridiculously brainless and immature as the next forum troll. Some sites have a ridiculously high rate of staff movement. MYM and 4K to an extent are probably the worst. Not a fortnight goes by without MYM advertising for more staff, despite having hundreds already.
The community at times is just dire. For the vast majority of the time, you will only ever see the negative aspect of people on the internet. If you go out on a limb and try new things, they will want you to fail, purely because they want to the same regurgitated crap over and over again. They want something to whine about.
eSports rewards dedication and abidance not talent. Even if you've the determination, will and talent, generally it's just not worth bothering. The people that appreciate the effort don't comment.
Personally, after the new year, I'll be starting a weekly eSports podcast, although details haven't been finalized. I'm not sure, but I think I would like something to be published in Pro Gam3r, purely for keeps sake. I don't think I would be interested in writing for them properly.
Suggestion? If you're interested in shout casting, then talk to Stuart. If you're interested in writing, find a niche or something you're very interested in. It helps when you're producing something that interests you, so it never becomes an obligation.
Ignore interviews like the plague, either giving or being interviewed, seriously. If you want to be an admin then there are lots of leagues always looking for staff. I suggest ESL over CB (in general, for ET, go with CB), although it doesn't really matter if it's a temporary thing.
IS THERE A SITE LIKE GAMESTV.ORG FOR CSS????
THANK YOU :)
think about majority of all other sports, it is focused around one thing. with gaming how would you broadcast it? just showing an overview all the time? showing from first person and then which person do you follow?
ect ect.
i think games need to evolve to be more spectator friendly before anything major is going to happen for it to get mainstream.
Things like that put people off from contributing in my opinion, so it's not wonder a lot more people don't get involved. Some people just get satisfaction out of one positive comment on a website, never mind being given a position of responsibility.
Applying perfect English and having a good sense of humour aren't enough to write an enjoyable text.
For example, I had to read through the first two paragraphs before I had a clue wtf this text was about. You'd be amazed how many people just don't read stuff like this. A reader is lazy.
The primary objective is to attract the reader (most game sites have a sloppy lay-out for example). Getting a point across, making people aware of something or advertising something doesn't come first.
What Pedro wrote makes alot of sense too.
Another problem is that gaming is much more 'opiniated' (even more than football, go figure) than other subjects you can write about.