| Podzz United Kingdom. February 29 2012 19:07. Posts 14 | Profile # |
Hi,
Long-time lurker firs time poster. As far as I can see no one has posted a recent article by VICE magazine about the Barcraft movement written by Joshua Haddow. I am a keen reader of VICE and enjoy a lot of their more cutting edge interesting articles although some have a rather ignorant and condescending tone.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/london-barcraft-mlg-winter-arena-2012 - This article was recently posted on their website.
Unfortunately I feel this article falls into the latter category. There is an overall feeling that the author was aiming to offend and alienate the Bar Craft scene creating negative connotations about the attendees and act of watching a legitimate spectator "sport". Although he dose try and redeem himself close to the end of the article by adding some positive opinions in the conclusion.
I was personally excited to see this coved in more mainstream media but sadly disappointed when I read the article. It almost feels like the author was trolling the Bar Craft scene.
What is your opinion on the way this article was covered?
Has the Bar Craft movement been covered in any other international media?
Authors Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/joshuahaddow |
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| graNite Germany. February 29 2012 19:10. Posts 1870 | Profile Blog # |
| Idra : the John travolta of gamers :D:D |
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| ...what England. February 29 2012 19:13. Posts 94 | Profile # |
don't like this article, just read it all, not a pleasant article,oh well.
EDIT: guys this is nerd baiting, he wants to get views by purposefully agitating us, try and avoid giving inLast edit: 2012-02-29 19:22:02 |
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| Eisregen Germany. February 29 2012 19:14. Posts 901 | Profile # |
I was that Sam that he interviewed (with the wristbands) and when he asked if he could ask me a few questions about barcraft I quite honestly said I'm pretty much new to these barcraft events (TBH I'm new to starcraft 2 in general and ive only been to two barcrafts before and I'm in no way a "Barcraft vet") After a chat we started talking about the other esports/lan events I had been involved in and he asked if he could interview me about them (ive been to a quite a few esports/lan events as both a participant and a exhibitor). I spent my time talking mainly about all the positive events ive been to (and some of the online tournements I have played in) and the generaly great atmosphere you find at these events and when he asked me about some of the negative points (cheating and people getting emotional/frustrated) I thought he was just building a balanced non-biased argument and did mention that the majority of players did have good sportsmanship (shaking hands and saying things like "glhf" at the start of the match).....however he chose to pretty much ignore all of the positive things I had said and twist what remained to give this article the negative spin he was obviously aiming for from the start.
nuff said =) |
| | Photo-Noob@ http://www.flickr.com/photos/eisregen1983/ |
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| Tobberoth Sweden. February 29 2012 19:17. Posts 4511 | Profile # |
| I think the writer is dumb as hell, but the article itself isn't that bad. It's obviously aimed at people who think the concept of watching an esport at a bar is retarded, and it still dares to be quite positive in the end. |
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| solidbebe Netherlands. February 29 2012 19:18. Posts 3230 | Profile # |
| Looks to me like he was just trying to get to know what this whole barcraft thing was about, but for some reason set out with the idea that it was something bad. Exactly like you said, it was a pretty negative article. Don't take people like these as your enemy though, they don't know what SC2 or E-sports is all about and it's hard for them to understand why some people do cry when they lose a match. What this man needs is a proper introduction to this. And ofcourse in the end there will always be people that are narrowminded and bigoted towards something and yuo just have to live with that. |
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| Rainofpain United States. February 29 2012 19:20. Posts 125 | Profile # |
| The guy who wrote this is a biased asshole. Why does he have a job? |
| | It`s hard to read bad players because they`re bad - Idra |
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 zalz Netherlands. February 29 2012 19:20. Posts 3291 | Profile Blog # |
People that follow Esports are way too emotional about the whole thing, and TL might just be the pinacle of that.
Many people spend hours a day talking about how great Esports is and how awesome it is. If you lock yourself in that bubble, you might be surprised when the outside world walks in and spoils it by providing criticism where before there was none.
Was this piece critical? Actually, no it was not. But by TL standards this was akin to three genocides and a scorched earth.
Esports and starcraft 2 is not going to be for everyone. Some people will write posts that support it, others will write negative pieces, and others, like this one, will land in the middle.
People shouldn't overreact just because someone writes a negative (or in this case actually midly positive) piece on Esports. Real sports has to deal with real criticism as well.
If you want to wear the big boy pants and call Starcraft 2 a sport, don't cry every time someone writes anything that is short of proclaiming it the 2nd coming.Last edit: 2012-02-29 19:21:06 |
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| Surrealistic February 29 2012 19:22. Posts 311 | Profile # |
| It's odd, because if we're to believe what he has written, you can sort of conclude that he went to this event not really wanting to experience, learn or understand anything at all. So he carries this attitude until he has to come up with an article, but realised perhaps he shouldn't be such a condescending asshat and decides to try and be nice. |
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| Timmsh Netherlands. February 29 2012 19:27. Posts 131 | Profile # |
| Remember, that even when it's negative publicity there will always be nerds saying: 'wow does this excist? next saturday, i'm going to that event!' |
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| Aruno New Zealand. February 29 2012 19:30. Posts 618 | Profile Blog # | |
| | aruno, arunoaj, aruno_aj | Those are my main aliases |
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| GizmoPT Portugal. February 29 2012 19:33. Posts 1429 | Profile # |
| lol... the hell did i just read ? world if full of stupid people i guess wtv *ignored* Last edit: 2012-02-29 19:33:50 |
| | Snipers Promod Creator - Portuguese Community Admin - www.facebook.com/SC2PT - Portugal SC2 Team Manager http://www.esl.eu/pt/sc2/team/5291565/ | |
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| Podzz United Kingdom. February 29 2012 19:37. Posts 14 | Profile # |
On February 29 2012 19:20 zalz wrote:
People that follow Esports are way too emotional about the whole thing, and TL might just be the pinacle of that.
I personally am not that "buthurt" about his article the guy is a bit of a douche, read some of his other articles.
Although I was frustrated by pre-conception's, it seems like he already wrote the article before even trying to find out about the event.
Do you think this is a common problem and will it hinder Starcrafts expansion into the mainstream?
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| Rannasha Netherlands. February 29 2012 19:42. Posts 2261 | Profile Blog # |
On February 29 2012 19:37 Podzz wrote:
Show nested quote +On February 29 2012 19:20 zalz wrote:
People that follow Esports are way too emotional about the whole thing, and TL might just be the pinacle of that.
Do you think this is a common problem and will it hinder Starcrafts expansion into the mainstream?
I don't think so. Most news coverage I've seen on Barcrafts has been rather positive, with the author often going in with low expectations and coming out positively surprised. There'll always be sour apples. This is one of them. But it's not representative for the majority of Barcraft articles fortunately. |
| | Such flammable little insects! |
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| zul Germany. February 29 2012 19:44. Posts 4049 | Profile Blog # |
| the guy that was being interviewed commented under the article and he said felt that the article puts a good thing in a bad light. not the smartest move by vice. |
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| Kerotan England. February 29 2012 19:46. Posts 1936 | Profile Blog # |
Yes the article is a tad negative,
But to be fair, some of what we do as a community is fucking weird, (ie he has a point with the whole handle thing, that we cheer for Huk and enjoy listening to DJ wheat) and I read most of the article as a bit of silly teasing, with some commentary thrown in.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, lets take ourselves less seriously, and instead of being keyboard warriors and spamming the author's twitter with "y u disrepect esports mo fucker", instead lets go to even greater lengths to explain to people outside the community as to why eSports is awesome, and why we love it so much.
-post script-
I want to sum up some of my thoughts succinctly, day9 once commented that he received some incredibly negative feedback when he first started doing his daily, and rather than reject it out of hand because it was overtly negative, he actually took away some valid criticisms of his style, and improved upon them.
I see this article in the same light, even if you disagree with the tone, I think the author has some very valid criticisms which relate to the impenetrability of the barcraft scene and the overall esports scene, (The male dominated atmosphere, the menu design at the barcraft, problems with commentary, our insistence on handles, more fundamental problems with how the game itself is watched), which are things that as a community we can work on and improve on.(for example the handout produced by an Aussie barcraft that explains the very basics of starcraft game mechanics)
Last edit: 2012-02-29 20:09:25 |
| | Nerdette // External revolution - Internal revolution // Fabulous // I raise my hands to heaven of curiosity // I don't know what to ask for // What has it got for me? // TL's Premier Archaeologist // Kerribear |
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| friedchicken United States. February 29 2012 19:47. Posts 142 | Profile # |
| I like how he says "typical Barcraft action shot" and then puts up a pic of a game were the player doesn't have more then 6 workers. |
| | "Don't panic" - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | |
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| Deadeight United Kingdom. February 29 2012 19:51. Posts 1566 | Profile Blog # |
Haven't finished reading, but I want to point out how funny this menu is:
![[image loading]](http://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/c2d8557e03060c8a169ce74ed019996d.jpg)
I'm ashamed to say I didn't even know about this barcraft. I think I'll try and head up to one sometime. |
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| Cereb Denmark. February 29 2012 19:53. Posts 2400 | Profile # |
Yeah, not the best article. The guy tries too hard to be "funny".
But any kind of exspsure is most of the time a good thing.  |
| | "Until the very very top in almost anything, all that matters is how much work you put in. The only problem is most people can't work hard even at things they do enjoy, much less things they don't have a real passion for. -Greg "IdrA" Fields |
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| Deadeight United Kingdom. February 29 2012 19:59. Posts 1566 | Profile Blog # |
Well I don't think that cast Barcraft in an unfavourable light to be honest. It's VICE and you've got to take into account their audience, so he's got to shoehorn some humour into there somehow.
He said a lot of positives, and the main negatives really were things like using the word nerd, or mentioning his preconceptions. Let's face it I can think of a few media outlets whose spin would be "computer geeks are so addicted they even watch it at pubs instead of football!".
He mentioned things like cheating, but I don't think that was to reflect negatively on the sport but to add drama and make the whole thing more interesting. Last edit: 2012-02-29 20:02:12 |
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