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| DoA United States. July 06 2011 08:40. Posts 565 | Profile Blog # |
Hey guys. I just read something over at Kotaku that actually really upset me. I don't normally choose to respond to things in this way, but I felt I had to. I posted it's contents in the spoiler to save you some time. Original link is at the bottom.
Here's the original interview with Zaccubus that the article took some words from: http://www.alienwarearena.com/articles/view/pro-gamer-interview-zaccubus/
*My full response is up now on Sixjax gaming's site*
http://www.sixjaxgaming.com/wp/scii/2011/07/06/professional-gaming-on-an-upswing-growing-fan-base-to-blame/
The article:
+ Show Spoiler +Professional Gaming on the Downturn, Cheesy TV to Blame
Jen Schiller — Professional Gamer David Treacy, or "Zaccubus" to his—erm—fans, recently spoke to Alienware about the changing face of professional gaming. Based on his interview, however, there's not much to talk about.
While Treacy compares the world of pro gaming to the economy ("It grew rapidly over the last decade, then almost imploded on itself.") he also mentions that the hardware is getting better, new games are being produced, and huge corportations (he cites Coke, Pepsi, Subway, and Adidas) are signing on as sponsors.
If there's no audience base for professional gaming, then Treacy blames television for being ill-equipped to properly capture the essence of gaming events. "Every TV show I've seen so far has been way too cheesy and not indicative of what pro gaming is about. Trying to squeeze an event into a 60 minute broadcast doesn't really work for gaming... Only recently, thanks to MLG, can we see what gaming events should look like: Great shoutcasting, well presented, and without the need to cheese it up for regular people to understand." Without this cheesiness that Treacy is referring to, what could possibly be left?
Don't get me wrong, I love watching people who are better than me at video games play them for money, especially when I don't know those people.
Oh wait. No I don't.
Treacy also describes the difficulties that one must endure in order to really make it as a pro gamer, a thankless profession that only pays about $30,000 annually before sponsorships. His advice to aspiring pros boils down to the following: It's really hard. "It's not easy to go pro. It takes time and if you don't pick the right games you could spend over two years mastering a certain game only to have it blown out of the water as no one is sponsoring it anymore. So pick wisely. Oh, and don't rage so much from losses. You only learn from your mistakes."
Here's to staying one of the Regular People.
********************************************************************
After reading Jen Miller's recent editorial on professional gaming I couldn't help but feel a bit betrayed. I mean.. She gave away her entire article in the first sentence! Spoiler alert, please!
Jen writes: "Professional Gamer David Treacy, or "Zaccubus" to his—erm—fans,recently spoke to Alienware..."
See? Right there you can pretty much stop reading. Let's take a moment to go through the issues in this piece so far.
Firstly; Jen disrespects everyone that enjoys watching David do what he does best. By using the phrase "his--erm--fans", Jen's basically saying that Zaccubus' fans, or the fans of esports in general, aren't really actual fans. Their some sort of sub-fan following an interest that's not worth following. Ouch. Great way to grab the attention of readers on a video gaming website.
Second; we've got the fact that this article is based on an interview done by someone else. Jen, maybe if you had some questions or opinions about some of the things in the interview you could have contacted David. I think that's what most responsible writers would have done. Isntead, you chose to use carefully selected phrases to further your own opinion in your article.
Alright, so that's the first sentence.
As for the rest of the piece, I'm not going to bother analyzing every little bit. I've got a burrito waiting for me at my favorite restaurant and I think what I've already says speaks to the validity of the rest of the article. I'll summarize with a couple sentences:
Jen, you didn't give us any examples of these "cheesy" shows. Whatever happened to research in journalism?
You act like $30,000 starting per year is a bad thing for progamers. Anyone who gets to do what they love for a job won't be unhappy with that much. David certainly didn't seem unhappy about it in the interview. It's unfortunate how you portrayed that.
How does the emergence of lots of large sponsors mean professional gaming is on a downturn? Seriously...
And what is this following phrase supposed to be exactly?
"Don't get me wrong, I love watching people who are better than me at video games play them for money, especially when I don't know those people.
Oh wait. No I don't."
Is that supposed to be clever? Funny maybe? It's neither. It's your own opinion, which is all this small attempt at "journalism" is. This is an opinion piece only and sensationalism at best.
I think I speak for the gaming community when I say that you owe David an apology. It's an embarrassment to Kotaku to have this on their page.
Original article: http://kotaku.com/5818213/professional-gaming-on-the-downturn-cheesy-tv-to-blame. Last edit: 2011-07-07 03:32:59
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| Elegy United States. July 06 2011 08:47. Posts 1515 | Profile Blog # |
Don't get me wrong, I love watching people who are better than me at sports play them for money, especially when I don't know those people.
Oh wait. No I don't.
^ Equally foolish of a statement
Bad articles and bad writing are the bane of internet warriors attempting to prove things they don't understand in their entirety. Sad article... |
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| StatikKhaos United States. July 06 2011 08:49. Posts 208 | Profile # |
| He never actually gave examples of cheese tv...that i can remember... |
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Kennigit  Canada. July 06 2011 08:59. Posts 19173 | Profile Blog # |
I wouldn't even click the link. Kotaku is a rag of a blog and exists only to spew traffic-generating sensationalism,....there isn't an ounce of journalism here. She interviewed 1 person and wrote an article on it???? You would actually fail an assignment in any journalism program trying to pull that off.
Her point is quite literally "Waaah this is boring i don't like it". Last edit: 2011-07-06 08:59:35 |
| | Please don't PM me if i closed your thread. |
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| CecilSunkure United States. July 06 2011 09:08. Posts 2237 | Profile Blog # |
On July 06 2011 08:59 Kennigit wrote:
I wouldn't even click the link. Kotaku is a rag of a blog and exists only to spew traffic-generating sensationalism,....there isn't an ounce of journalism here. She interviewed 1 person and wrote an article on it???? You would actually fail an assignment in any journalism program trying to pull that off.
Her point is quite literally "Waaah this is boring i don't like it".
I kinda feel bad for visiting [and commenting on] the site now.. Oh well, last time I'll visit it I suppose.Last edit: 2011-07-06 09:10:36 |
| | http://bit.ly/HJBjgK - Free RTS I dev'd! | |
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| Torte de Lini Canada. July 06 2011 09:20. Posts 27065 | Profile Blog # |
I don't really like watching sports on TV, either, I would much rather watch them live
That's from Jen. Honestly dude, you put too much effort for a blog and network that really is full of bad jokes, biasness and stupidity.
Please. Quit Kotaku and go to Joystiq, Giant Bomb or anyone else relatively intelligent or at least remotely doing more than spewing her opinion with a garnish of one interview.
I stopped going onto Kotaku purely because they were classless, not funny and pretentious. Their commenters too, while sometimes more intelligent than the journalists, are equally pretentious at times or too easily bruised.
Even I can write better.Last edit: 2011-07-06 09:24:06 |
| | https://twitter.com/#!/TorteDeLini (@TorteDeLini) | |
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 Mikilatov United States. July 06 2011 09:30. Posts 3897 | Profile Blog # |
Hahaha what garbage. The whole thing is literally "I don't like watching people play games at a high level, therefore it has problems and it's shit."
I feel bad for Zaccubus, as his positive words were turned against something I'm sure he loves and cares about. (Albeit it was horribly ineffective of the writer.)
I could write a better article than that in 25 minutes, even if I was forced to argue her useless, uninformed, flimsy, pointless side. |
| | ♥ I used to lasso the shit out of your tournaments =( ♥ | Much is my hero. | zizi yO~ | Be Nice, TL. |
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| jimmyjingle United States. July 06 2011 09:30. Posts 464 | Profile Blog # |
ths thing is, some people actually go to sites like these to form opinions, and then we have negative ESPORTS dollars for each person who decides they don't want to like ESPORTs either.
it's upsetting! |
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| AzTec Canada. July 06 2011 09:31. Posts 178 | Profile # |
| Relax OP, Kotaku is like the daily mail of video games. Your blood pressure will thank you the sooner you come to realize this. |
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| Torte de Lini Canada. July 06 2011 09:35. Posts 27065 | Profile Blog # |
On July 06 2011 09:30 Mikilatov wrote:
Hahaha what garbage. The whole thing is literally "I don't like watching people play games at a high level, therefore it has problems and it's shit."
I feel bad for Zaccubus, as his positive words were turned against something I'm sure he loves and cares about. (Albeit it was horribly ineffective of the writer.)
I could write a better article than that in 25 minutes, even if I was forced to argue her useless, uninformed, flimsy, pointless side.
Please do, but without responding to her :3 |
| | https://twitter.com/#!/TorteDeLini (@TorteDeLini) | |
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| LagT_T Argentina. July 06 2011 09:48. Posts 529 | Profile # |
| You should have quoted the entire article to avoid giving her pageviews. |
| | "The tactics... no. Amateurs discuss tactics, professional soldiers study logistics." - Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising |
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| DoA United States. July 06 2011 09:54. Posts 565 | Profile Blog # |
On July 06 2011 09:30 jimmyjingle wrote:
ths thing is, some people actually go to sites like these to form opinions, and then we have negative ESPORTS dollars for each person who decides they don't want to like ESPORTs either.
it's upsetting!
Exactly. Most people know to avoid this kind of thing, but the sad fact is that the people that aren't familiar with professional gaming are likely not familiar with where to go to get valid info on it.
She's welcome to her opinion on progaming, but the poor, misleading "journalism" is what really bothers me. |
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| W2 United States. July 06 2011 10:03. Posts 1086 | Profile Blog # |
| That article was utter garbage and even though we are all laughing at her shitty writing, it still pains me because of all the page hits she has gotten because of teamliquid. |
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| The KY United Kingdom. July 06 2011 10:11. Posts 6235 | Profile Blog # |
| Condescending, judgemental trash. I am as apathetic FPS pro-gaming as much as the next SC fan, but dismissing the whole scene in such a smug, snarky way based on one or two lines from an interview that I don't think she even did herself...this isn't journalism. Not going to Kotaku anymore if they publish this shite. |
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| Zaccubus United Kingdom. July 06 2011 10:13. Posts 40 | Profile # | |
| | www.twitter.com/Zaccubus - www.team-dignitas.net |
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| QuanticHawk United States. July 06 2011 10:23. Posts 21259 | Profile Blog # |
joke's on you dude, kotaku is part of the gawker media empire that includes deadspin. You should know what you are getting there.
and really the whole gaming media scene as a whole, since it is entirely dependent on keeping the people you're covering happy. |
| | PROFESSIONAL GAMER - SEND ME OFFERS TO JOIN YOUR TEAM - USA USA USA |
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| Rinrun Canada. July 06 2011 10:24. Posts 3486 | Profile # |
| That article- just lol. Kotaku has never been on my list of visited sites and never will. |
| | MBC/Liquid/TSM for now, and for always. |
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| Oreo7 United States. July 06 2011 10:41. Posts 1607 | Profile Blog # |
| kotaku makes me giggle, sometimes excessively |
| | Stork - HerO - Ryung - Huk - MMA - sGredfive on bnet. Wittgenstein brain? |
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| DoA United States. July 06 2011 12:46. Posts 565 | Profile Blog # |
No worries. I'm always happy to stand up for a fellow gamer. I'll post your interview link in the OP too. |
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| Adebisi Canada. July 06 2011 12:51. Posts 1536 | Profile Blog # |
On July 06 2011 08:59 Kennigit wrote:
I wouldn't even click the link. Kotaku is a rag of a blog and exists only to spew traffic-generating sensationalism,....there isn't an ounce of journalism here. She interviewed 1 person and wrote an article on it???? You would actually fail an assignment in any journalism program trying to pull that off.
Her point is quite literally "Waaah this is boring i don't like it".
Seriously, don't know why Kotaku exists, or more accurately why people care that it does, the only links I ever see to Kotaku these days are "HEY LOOK AT THIS AWFUL ARTICLE ON KOTAKU" |
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