It's still small peanuts. There aren't any mainstream followup shows. Ask everyone you meet at PAX to name any esports player other than fatal1ty, and I'd guess you'll get a 10% hit rate at most.
Esports has not had a breakout yet. It's on a long plateau. The first truly mass appeal esport will be a game designed from the ground up to BE an esport.
I assume that by a game that's designed to be an esport, you mean something that would be easy for casual viewers to get into, without having deep knowledge of the game.
Game like that could find the viewers sure, but will it find the players?
The popularity of esports will grow with the popularity of the games and the quality of the coverage, and the quality is getting better all the time. The celebrity of the players will follow on its own.
Individual avatars strike me as being similar to the FoxTrax puck halo; a gimmicky solution that betrays a superficial understanding of the problem.
Honesty, infrastructure isn't the problem. The fact that the vast majority of players are treated like crap, that the non top tier tournaments are shady and that the community, that's doing the heavy lifting to grow the audience, is subject to copyright takedown orders if the publishers don't like what is being said is the problem.
There needs to be a balancing of power between the publishers and the players and casters. Esport being run soley as an extension of marketing for the games themselves will kill it faster than anything.
Honesty, infrastructure isn't the problem. The fact that the vast majority of players are treated like crap, that the non top tier tournaments are shady and that the community, that's doing the heavy lifting to grow the audience, is subject to copyright takedown orders if the publishers don't like what is being said is the problem.
There needs to be a balancing of power between the publishers and the players and casters. Esport being run soley as an extension of marketing for the games themselves will kill it faster than anything.
The only reason I've seen Valve take a massive run at Esports is due to the presence of Riot Games and the moves that company has made.
They spawned Dota 2 to compete a little late and have been playing catch up since then.
They realised after some success that this could help their other competitive game (Counterstrike) hence the attempts at sourcing funds for competitions in this realm with the "Esports Crate" drops.
At least with the Riot model pro players are guaranteed a salary based on the number of games they play in that season. The teams are also required to have managers. These people end up signing on to become Riot employees.
The main casters tend to be employed by Riot but their are presenters and auxiliary casters for the different regions around the world who augment the live competitions.
Riot has also built some sizable studios in Cologne, Spain and Santa Monica, similar to the Korean studios that were already built in Seoul to be able to house a live audience weekly plus stream.
Then they also run the Coke Challenger circuit for amateur teams. The amateur teams can also compete in a variety of other competitions.
I'm not sure of they copyright take down orders, is this something Valve is doing?
I think the issue is whether other Esports can get to this level. For example you still have the Fighting Game Community who refuse corporate partnerships for the most part and are content with multiple amateur run tournaments. With menial prize money. I think Capcom are slowly rearing their head and realising money may be present for them to make if they support this game market that they have a stranglehold on.
In my hotel in Singapore there was a TV channel showing video game programming. The show I saw was a Quake tournament, a capture the flag variation. It was very clear, right from the beginning, that even the hosts and commentators had no way to tell either what was going on, nor who was the better team, nor if anyone might score until it happened. So it turned out there was random action, then one team's score would increment by one point, and then it would continue.
It showed me just how important a directional heuristic is to make a sport (or game or esport) a good spectator sport. Either you need a quick succession of points (like basketball or tennis) so numbers are what you have in your head on a minute by minute basis, or slowly changing positions (like football). Possession (like in soccer) or trade-able items (like poker) can also be good signs.
To "fix" Quake Arena, there would have to be a signal like this. The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map... but then Quake Arena seemed to have very little territory control.
To "fix" Quake Arena, there would have to be a signal like this. The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map... but then Quake Arena seemed to have very little territory control.
I don't know that Quake Arena has all that great a spectator client (I honestly am surprised that they are on TV considering how small the game's current scene and support are).
The Counterstrike: Global Offensive spectator client has the screens you have noted. It is really informative to watch a tournament from inside the game when it is being broadcast. It also has a faster round based on the game play. In between rounds random spectators are given free gun skins.
These extra tools also make it passable to watch outside of the spectator client with presenters giving you information on teams and players but it's not quite optimal.
I would personally like it if there was presenters audio from inside the game spectator client (with the option of turning them off) and seeing them popup again between rounds with highlights on a video.
An all in one solution like this would be great for someone using their PC to watch but not so good on broadcast.
So there was a pretty notorious eSports fuck up today regarding the Dreamhack Summer Hearthstone Tournament.
The two finalists were playing to 3 out of 5. In the second game with RDU (Player 1) having 9 Cards in his hand while Amaz (Player 2) had 2 Cards in his hand. Amaz is at 29, RDU is at 1.
This game has an ingame chat system, and since they were playing on their own accounts, one of RDU's friends took it upon himself to tell RDU what cards Amaz had in his hand. It had to be translated from Romanian, but the proper pronouns could match what was in Amaz's hand.
Although this is pointed out, Dreamhack officials continue to let the tournament play. The website in charge of streaming the event even blames the tournament organizers for not resetting the game or investigating the game. Artosis, one of the tournament organizers and commentators made this statement about the action:
"About what happened... RDU was messaged about a 2 cards in Amazs hand during game 2 of the DreamHack finals. This was greatly discussed amongst all of the top pros, and not one thinks he cheated. The game was already over. The information had no chance of helping RDU, because he was definitely going to win no matter what at that point. RDU looked very upset when this happened, and we even saw him call over an admin immediately after the game."
In response to this, the friend who sent the message of RDU claims this:
"It was meant as a joke. I bluffed something that I guessed from the first game and it finally came up on his iPad due to a 3-Minute Delay. It was towards the end of the game and wouldn't have any impact on the match. I apologize for what happened."
So...where do we go from here? Does Blizzard need to make an offline mode with no online/chat interference? Do the tournament organizers need to overturn judgement and restart or does RDU get booted from the tournament? Should each person just play on dummy accounts where every card is unlocked and rebuilt? This was only a 16 Person Tournament, so it wouldn't slow down time that much.
Either way, a giant black mark has been put on Hearthstone's professional future.
Yes, Blizzard needs to make a chat-free mode. It's extremely stupid of them not to have done so; that should resolve the issue in future.
However, with regards to this specific tournament, the blame lies primarily with the tournament organizers. They screwed this up quite badly by running a tournament with an open chat system in the first place, and they need to do something about their mistake.
I saw what happened in that Hearthstone tournament, and it's quite fascinating.
Really what it comes down to is this. Any game that is not real-time and has hidden information, can not be played competitively and seriously unless all players are in a properly controlled environment. If played online, it can not be broadcast without an enormous delay. To be perfectly safe, the broadcast can not begin until the game is complete.
Even if the game is not streamed at all, if it's just played online, each player has to have trustworthy judges physically in their presence monitoring them and their actions. If we're just playing online, even without a broadcast, how do you know that my "player" isn't actually five experts in a room all cooperating together to choose the next move? How do you know I don't have a second computer running simulations to help choose the next move?
Even removing chat mode form Hearthstone isn't going to help one bit. Let's say Rym and I were going to cheat. He could just text me, or use Google Hangout, or morse code with a signal light from outside my apartment.
The only turn-based games with hidden information that are played competitively and seriously on any sort of large scale are Poker and CCGs. Both of those are always played in-person in controlled environments to prevent cheating. Even then, other forms of cheating still happen. Hearthstone is actually breaking new ground in that it's the first such game to be played competitively, seriously, digitally, and at a large scale. That's why you can't really blame them for not anticipating this, though you can easily blame them for not taking corrective action.
If it happens again, that's a black mark against the people running these tournaments. A new system and new league will have to be devised to maintain the integrity of the game.
This Hearthstone tournament was conducted on-site though, right? In that setting they can ensure that you don't have access to any communication devices, and, assuming the game has one, run the game in offline mode.
Absent an offline mode, it's enough to have an online mode with chat disabled, although as a tournament organizer you have to do a bit more work because the presence of an internet connection means you need to be careful about restricting communications. Alternatively, you have to ensure that the game is broadcast with a sufficient delay to ensure that no hidden information leaks out.
I saw what happened in that Hearthstone tournament, and it's quite fascinating.
Really what it comes down to is this. Any game that is not real-time and has hidden information, can not be played competitively and seriously unless all players are in a properly controlled environment. If played online, it can not be broadcast without an enormous delay. To be perfectly safe, the broadcast can not begin until the game is complete.
Improper access to hidden information is still a major issue for real-time games as well. The main difference is that typically in real-time games you can get away with significantly shorter delays - typically on the timescale of 1-10 minutes - but the core issue is still there.
The only turn-based games with hidden information that are played competitively and seriously on any sort of large scale are Poker and CCGs. Both of those are always played in-person in controlled environments to prevent cheating. Even then, other forms of cheating still happen. Hearthstone is actually breaking new ground in that it's the first such game to be played competitively, seriously, digitally, and at a large scale. That's why you can't really blame them for not anticipating this, though you can easily blame them for not taking corrective action.
If it happens again, that's a black mark against the people running these tournaments. A new system and new league will have to be devised to maintain the integrity of the game.
I think they fully deserve to be blamed for not anticipating it, because of the reason I mentioned before. This is not a new problem; it's a type of problem that has often been encountered and dealt with in plenty of other games.
Yes, Hearthstone is different in that it's turn-based, but real-time games still run into issues of broadly the same category; concern about improper access to hidden information is always a significant concern. It's an issue that is taken seriously in Starcraft II, it's taken seriously in League of Legends, and it's taken seriously in Counter-Strike despite the much shorter timescale involved. If the tournament organizers were taking the issues seriously it should have been totally obvious to them that they needed a way to prevent people from gaining access to hidden information they weren't supposed to get.
One easy fix if the developer didn't want to make an offline or LAN mode is to provide a 'Tournament client' which is essentially a client which only has access to tournament servers and only people playing tournaments can login.
Guess the issue would be infrastructure, only the big developers with lots of money in their Esports departments would be able to manage this.
Really what Hearthstone needs is a competitive mode. Pay $5 a month. Always have 2 copies of every single card. Only play against other people who also have every card. Allow chatting with opponent. Built in support for swiss and bracketed structures. etc.
That would probably not work. People would play the professional mode of month or three, get bored and stop playing forever. Collecting aspect is what keeps most people addicted, and that keeps people playing and more people play the game better for Blizzard.
That would probably not work. People would play the professional mode of month or three, get bored and stop playing forever. Collecting aspect is what keeps most people addicted, and that keeps people playing and more people play the game better for Blizzard.
Possibly. I found trying out new decks to be more compelling and the collecting part was mostly getting in the way of that.
That would probably not work. People would play the professional mode of month or three, get bored and stop playing forever. Collecting aspect is what keeps most people addicted, and that keeps people playing and more people play the game better for Blizzard.
The LCG model that Android: Netrunner uses would keep things interesting. Add official leagues and tournaments. And leave draft as a thing for people who like it.
Has anyone done the math to figure out how much it would cost to buy / craft 2 of every card that exists in Hearthstone?
I find it interesting that the fighting game community was forced to accept one of their most talented players coming out as being transgender, "he" (Ricky Ortiz) is now appropriately referred to as a "she" in all the tournaments.
As all the tournaments are in person the community just had to accept the situation even though prior to this they were perceived to be one of the most testosterone driven, gender intolerant communities.
Obviously the fact that Ricky is one of the best competitors in North America helps the case. I'm not sure but traditional sports would have difficulty dealing with transgender situations in comparison.
Back in the late 90's one of the top Star Wars CCG players came out. There was some confusion over the name change (some thought they were siblings) but it all worked out.
In my hotel in Singapore there was a TV channel showing video game programming. The show I saw was a Quake tournament, a capture the flag variation. It was very clear, right from the beginning, that even the hosts and commentators had no way to tell either what was going on, nor who was the better team, nor if anyone might score until it happened. So it turned out there was random action, then one team's score would increment by one point, and then it would continue.
It showed me just how important a directional heuristic is to make a sport (or game or esport) a good spectator sport. Either you need a quick succession of points (like basketball or tennis) so numbers are what you have in your head on a minute by minute basis, or slowly changing positions (like football). Possession (like in soccer) or trade-able items (like poker) can also be good signs.
To "fix" Quake Arena, there would have to be a signal like this. The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map... but then Quake Arena seemed to have very little territory control.
I just watched a Splatoon video and realized it did exactly what I said in this post:
"The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map"
Splatoon is probably a contender for being the first esport with a super super super clear directional heuristic for non-expert spectators.
In my hotel in Singapore there was a TV channel showing video game programming. The show I saw was a Quake tournament, a capture the flag variation. It was very clear, right from the beginning, that even the hosts and commentators had no way to tell either what was going on, nor who was the better team, nor if anyone might score until it happened. So it turned out there was random action, then one team's score would increment by one point, and then it would continue.
It showed me just how important a directional heuristic is to make a sport (or game or esport) a good spectator sport. Either you need a quick succession of points (like basketball or tennis) so numbers are what you have in your head on a minute by minute basis, or slowly changing positions (like football). Possession (like in soccer) or trade-able items (like poker) can also be good signs.
To "fix" Quake Arena, there would have to be a signal like this. The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map... but then Quake Arena seemed to have very little territory control.
I just watched a Splatoon video and realized it did exactly what I said in this post:
"The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map"
Splatoon is probably a contender for being the first esport with a super super super clear directional heuristic for non-expert spectators.
Splatoon is as much a contender for an esport as Wii-fit is a contender for an Olympic sport. Explicitly showing an area of influence is not even required for normal sports. When I watch football or basketball, I know what potential areas are influenced by one team versus another because I've watched and played these sports yet there is no explicit "this team has this area under control" especially when the change can happen without me noticing.
Bullshit. If you watched a series of football games on a field that looked infinitely long, and you couldn't see how far a team had to go to get a touchdown, there would be no drama at all. None. Knowing how much space a running back has to navigate, or how far a quarterback has to throw? That's the ENTIRE sport, and why it's so easy to follow for non expert viewers.
Read my preceding paragraph again:
"The show I saw was a Quake tournament, a capture the flag variation. It was very clear, right from the beginning, that even the hosts and commentators had no way to tell either what was going on, nor who was the better team, nor if anyone might score until it happened. So it turned out there was random action, then one team's score would increment by one point, and then it would continue."
A football match in which ANY play could move forward ANY number of yards and points appeared on the scoreboard? No viewers. None.
I didn't note you were comparing the Quake CTF game to Splatoon, I was also referring to Soccer when I said football which has a lot of back and forth much like Australian Football.
Also there are a multitude of cameras catching the action where as in that Quake tournament the guys casting and the guys trying to spectate (the camera guy) are one and the same person (hard to do) or separate people and it wouldn't work unless you had a separate spectate (camera) team with a director of operations and communication between the person controlling camera and the commentator. If you want a fair comparison you could attempt to watch a semi-professionally casted CS:GO tournament or any of the official League of Legends games where they have people who direct the show, have referees, cameramen, commentators, statisticians, coaches teams.
What you watched was the equivalent of a parent with a handy cam trying to video their kid playing their first game in a primary school sport.
Bullshit. If you watched a series of football games on a field that looked infinitely long, and you couldn't see how far a team had to go to get a touchdown, there would be no drama at all. None. Knowing how much space a running back has to navigate, or how far a quarterback has to throw? That's the ENTIRE sport, and why it's so easy to follow for non expert viewers.
So why is explicit zone control, such as Splatoon, a requirement for an esport in your opinion?
"The show I saw was a Quake tournament, a capture the flag variation. It was very clear, right from the beginning, that even the hosts and commentators had no way to tell either what was going on, nor who was the better team, nor if anyone might score until it happened. So it turned out there was random action, then one team's score would increment by one point, and then it would continue."
If you watch any undeveloped Esports scenes you would be aware that most people commentating have never even played the game before and don't know what the fuck is going on. The only reason they are there is because they have commentated on something else in the past or aren't competing and happen to be there. The rise of English commentators to the Starcraft scene was when just such a situation was happening, when some random FPS game casters were asked to commentate a Starcraft game for the first time and they had no idea what the fuck was going on so 2 of the knocked out players got on stage and started casting instead.
So why is explicit zone control, such as Splatoon, a requirement for an esport in your opinion?
It isn't. I never said it was. Ever. I said this:
"It showed me just how important a directional heuristic is to make a sport (or game or esport) a good spectator sport. Either you need a quick succession of points (like basketball or tennis) so numbers are what you have in your head on a minute by minute basis, or slowly changing positions (like football). Possession (like in soccer) or trade-able items (like poker) can also be good signs."
So when I said this in the very next paragraph:
"To "fix" Quake Arena, there would have to be a signal like this. The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map... but then Quake Arena seemed to have very little territory control."
I meant a coloured map showing zones of control was ONE option to have a clear indication of ONE directional heuristic. One idea for one possibility is not a requirement. Not even close. It's an idea I had, and then I saw that exact same idea in a video game trailer. I thought it was worth posting.
FPS games that don't have a strong area control mechanic have fuck-all for positional heuristics for spectators, even expert ones.
The old Team Fortress games (like Weapons Factory) had vague zone control, but to express that visually would require a human team with expert knowledge of the game watching and manually deciding how well "secured" each area was between the two bases.
A top-down map coloring in a zone hierarchy like -
Locked Down Secure Contested Abandoned
-
would do well. But even then, this gives no indication of infiltrative efforts. Many of the epic caps I took were as a lone Recon ninja sneaking in.
So you'd need ANOTHER team watching all the players capable of making such a move, and switching the spectator/commentary focus from the area control heuristic to following the individual player if they were indeed making a move.
The team you'd need to spectate/commentate a game of Weapons Factory would be as big as the two teams combined.
I think that might be a reason why Counter-Strike manages to be somewhat popular as a e-sport. Team A has 10 points and team B has 5 point and who reached 16 first wins. And for following what's going on during the round it's easy to say that the team with more people alive is probably doing better.
Though one confusing thing is the unbalanced maps and asynchronous nature of the game. Something like 4-11 score might not be so clear lead for the other team as it might first seem.
Comments
Esports has not had a breakout yet. It's on a long plateau. The first truly mass appeal esport will be a game designed from the ground up to BE an esport.
Game like that could find the viewers sure, but will it find the players?
Individual avatars strike me as being similar to the FoxTrax puck halo; a gimmicky solution that betrays a superficial understanding of the problem.
Try asking someone younger than 35 if "fatal1ty" is the only answer your getting.
how to build an esport is something valve is doing better than anyone:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/08/dota-2-the-international-3
Honesty, infrastructure isn't the problem. The fact that the vast majority of players are treated like crap, that the non top tier tournaments are shady and that the community, that's doing the heavy lifting to grow the audience, is subject to copyright takedown orders if the publishers don't like what is being said is the problem.
There needs to be a balancing of power between the publishers and the players and casters. Esport being run soley as an extension of marketing for the games themselves will kill it faster than anything.
They spawned Dota 2 to compete a little late and have been playing catch up since then.
They realised after some success that this could help their other competitive game (Counterstrike) hence the attempts at sourcing funds for competitions in this realm with the "Esports Crate" drops.
At least with the Riot model pro players are guaranteed a salary based on the number of games they play in that season. The teams are also required to have managers. These people end up signing on to become Riot employees.
The main casters tend to be employed by Riot but their are presenters and auxiliary casters for the different regions around the world who augment the live competitions.
Riot has also built some sizable studios in Cologne, Spain and Santa Monica, similar to the Korean studios that were already built in Seoul to be able to house a live audience weekly plus stream.
Then they also run the Coke Challenger circuit for amateur teams. The amateur teams can also compete in a variety of other competitions.
I'm not sure of they copyright take down orders, is this something Valve is doing?
I think the issue is whether other Esports can get to this level. For example you still have the Fighting Game Community who refuse corporate partnerships for the most part and are content with multiple amateur run tournaments. With menial prize money. I think Capcom are slowly rearing their head and realising money may be present for them to make if they support this game market that they have a stranglehold on.
It showed me just how important a directional heuristic is to make a sport (or game or esport) a good spectator sport. Either you need a quick succession of points (like basketball or tennis) so numbers are what you have in your head on a minute by minute basis, or slowly changing positions (like football). Possession (like in soccer) or trade-able items (like poker) can also be good signs.
To "fix" Quake Arena, there would have to be a signal like this. The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map... but then Quake Arena seemed to have very little territory control.
The Counterstrike: Global Offensive spectator client has the screens you have noted. It is really informative to watch a tournament from inside the game when it is being broadcast. It also has a faster round based on the game play. In between rounds random spectators are given free gun skins.
These extra tools also make it passable to watch outside of the spectator client with presenters giving you information on teams and players but it's not quite optimal.
I would personally like it if there was presenters audio from inside the game spectator client (with the option of turning them off) and seeing them popup again between rounds with highlights on a video.
An all in one solution like this would be great for someone using their PC to watch but not so good on broadcast.
The two finalists were playing to 3 out of 5. In the second game with RDU (Player 1) having 9 Cards in his hand while Amaz (Player 2) had 2 Cards in his hand. Amaz is at 29, RDU is at 1.
This game has an ingame chat system, and since they were playing on their own accounts, one of RDU's friends took it upon himself to tell RDU what cards Amaz had in his hand. It had to be translated from Romanian, but the proper pronouns could match what was in Amaz's hand.
Although this is pointed out, Dreamhack officials continue to let the tournament play. The website in charge of streaming the event even blames the tournament organizers for not resetting the game or investigating the game. Artosis, one of the tournament organizers and commentators made this statement about the action:
"About what happened... RDU was messaged about a 2 cards in Amazs hand during game 2 of the DreamHack finals. This was greatly discussed amongst all of the top pros, and not one thinks he cheated. The game was already over. The information had no chance of helping RDU, because he was definitely going to win no matter what at that point. RDU looked very upset when this happened, and we even saw him call over an admin immediately after the game."
In response to this, the friend who sent the message of RDU claims this:
"It was meant as a joke. I bluffed something that I guessed from the first game and it finally came up on his iPad due to a 3-Minute Delay. It was towards the end of the game and wouldn't have any impact on the match. I apologize for what happened."
So...where do we go from here? Does Blizzard need to make an offline mode with no online/chat interference? Do the tournament organizers need to overturn judgement and restart or does RDU get booted from the tournament? Should each person just play on dummy accounts where every card is unlocked and rebuilt? This was only a 16 Person Tournament, so it wouldn't slow down time that much.
Either way, a giant black mark has been put on Hearthstone's professional future.
However, with regards to this specific tournament, the blame lies primarily with the tournament organizers. They screwed this up quite badly by running a tournament with an open chat system in the first place, and they need to do something about their mistake.
Really what it comes down to is this. Any game that is not real-time and has hidden information, can not be played competitively and seriously unless all players are in a properly controlled environment. If played online, it can not be broadcast without an enormous delay. To be perfectly safe, the broadcast can not begin until the game is complete.
Even if the game is not streamed at all, if it's just played online, each player has to have trustworthy judges physically in their presence monitoring them and their actions. If we're just playing online, even without a broadcast, how do you know that my "player" isn't actually five experts in a room all cooperating together to choose the next move? How do you know I don't have a second computer running simulations to help choose the next move?
Even removing chat mode form Hearthstone isn't going to help one bit. Let's say Rym and I were going to cheat. He could just text me, or use Google Hangout, or morse code with a signal light from outside my apartment.
The only turn-based games with hidden information that are played competitively and seriously on any sort of large scale are Poker and CCGs. Both of those are always played in-person in controlled environments to prevent cheating. Even then, other forms of cheating still happen. Hearthstone is actually breaking new ground in that it's the first such game to be played competitively, seriously, digitally, and at a large scale. That's why you can't really blame them for not anticipating this, though you can easily blame them for not taking corrective action.
If it happens again, that's a black mark against the people running these tournaments. A new system and new league will have to be devised to maintain the integrity of the game.
Absent an offline mode, it's enough to have an online mode with chat disabled, although as a tournament organizer you have to do a bit more work because the presence of an internet connection means you need to be careful about restricting communications. Alternatively, you have to ensure that the game is broadcast with a sufficient delay to ensure that no hidden information leaks out. Improper access to hidden information is still a major issue for real-time games as well. The main difference is that typically in real-time games you can get away with significantly shorter delays - typically on the timescale of 1-10 minutes - but the core issue is still there. I think they fully deserve to be blamed for not anticipating it, because of the reason I mentioned before. This is not a new problem; it's a type of problem that has often been encountered and dealt with in plenty of other games.
By way of illustration, here's an example from League of Legends where a team cheated in an online qualifier:
http://ggchronicle.com/absolute-legends-na-admits-ghosting-during-qualifier/
Yes, Hearthstone is different in that it's turn-based, but real-time games still run into issues of broadly the same category; concern about improper access to hidden information is always a significant concern. It's an issue that is taken seriously in Starcraft II, it's taken seriously in League of Legends, and it's taken seriously in Counter-Strike despite the much shorter timescale involved. If the tournament organizers were taking the issues seriously it should have been totally obvious to them that they needed a way to prevent people from gaining access to hidden information they weren't supposed to get.
Guess the issue would be infrastructure, only the big developers with lots of money in their Esports departments would be able to manage this.
Has anyone done the math to figure out how much it would cost to buy / craft 2 of every card that exists in Hearthstone?
Side note: I hear someone is buying up all the MOXs in Magic Online in order to inflate the price. Dick move or crafty business man?
As all the tournaments are in person the community just had to accept the situation even though prior to this they were perceived to be one of the most testosterone driven, gender intolerant communities.
Obviously the fact that Ricky is one of the best competitors in North America helps the case. I'm not sure but traditional sports would have difficulty dealing with transgender situations in comparison.
"The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map"
Splatoon is probably a contender for being the first esport with a super super super clear directional heuristic for non-expert spectators.
Explicitly showing an area of influence is not even required for normal sports. When I watch football or basketball, I know what potential areas are influenced by one team versus another because I've watched and played these sports yet there is no explicit "this team has this area under control" especially when the change can happen without me noticing.
Read my preceding paragraph again:
"The show I saw was a Quake tournament, a capture the flag variation. It was very clear, right from the beginning, that even the hosts and commentators had no way to tell either what was going on, nor who was the better team, nor if anyone might score until it happened. So it turned out there was random action, then one team's score would increment by one point, and then it would continue."
A football match in which ANY play could move forward ANY number of yards and points appeared on the scoreboard? No viewers. None.
Also there are a multitude of cameras catching the action where as in that Quake tournament the guys casting and the guys trying to spectate (the camera guy) are one and the same person (hard to do) or separate people and it wouldn't work unless you had a separate spectate (camera) team with a director of operations and communication between the person controlling camera and the commentator. If you want a fair comparison you could attempt to watch a semi-professionally casted CS:GO tournament or any of the official League of Legends games where they have people who direct the show, have referees, cameramen, commentators, statisticians, coaches teams.
What you watched was the equivalent of a parent with a handy cam trying to video their kid playing their first game in a primary school sport. So why is explicit zone control, such as Splatoon, a requirement for an esport in your opinion? If you watch any undeveloped Esports scenes you would be aware that most people commentating have never even played the game before and don't know what the fuck is going on. The only reason they are there is because they have commentated on something else in the past or aren't competing and happen to be there. The rise of English commentators to the Starcraft scene was when just such a situation was happening, when some random FPS game casters were asked to commentate a Starcraft game for the first time and they had no idea what the fuck was going on so 2 of the knocked out players got on stage and started casting instead.
"It showed me just how important a directional heuristic is to make a sport (or game or esport) a good spectator sport. Either you need a quick succession of points (like basketball or tennis) so numbers are what you have in your head on a minute by minute basis, or slowly changing positions (like football). Possession (like in soccer) or trade-able items (like poker) can also be good signs."
So when I said this in the very next paragraph:
"To "fix" Quake Arena, there would have to be a signal like this. The best I can think of is maybe showing a map, with the position of all players, but then color the map itself showing who controls which part of the map... but then Quake Arena seemed to have very little territory control."
I meant a coloured map showing zones of control was ONE option to have a clear indication of ONE directional heuristic. One idea for one possibility is not a requirement. Not even close. It's an idea I had, and then I saw that exact same idea in a video game trailer. I thought it was worth posting.
FPS games that don't have a strong area control mechanic have fuck-all for positional heuristics for spectators, even expert ones.
The old Team Fortress games (like Weapons Factory) had vague zone control, but to express that visually would require a human team with expert knowledge of the game watching and manually deciding how well "secured" each area was between the two bases.
A top-down map coloring in a zone hierarchy like -
Locked Down
Secure
Contested
Abandoned
-
would do well. But even then, this gives no indication of infiltrative efforts. Many of the epic caps I took were as a lone Recon ninja sneaking in.
So you'd need ANOTHER team watching all the players capable of making such a move, and switching the spectator/commentary focus from the area control heuristic to following the individual player if they were indeed making a move.
The team you'd need to spectate/commentate a game of Weapons Factory would be as big as the two teams combined.
Though one confusing thing is the unbalanced maps and asynchronous nature of the game. Something like 4-11 score might not be so clear lead for the other team as it might first seem.