Calling the Shots Part 3 - The Efficacy of a Loose Cannon

If you're a League of Legends fan, chances are you've heard the memetic repetition of "Chaos-style" as an explanation describing Unicorns of Love's gameplay in the European LCS. You've probably also heard certain analysts refer to said chaos as "just mistakes."

I'm here to offer a neutral perspective.

I mentioned in Part 2 that it's important to know your limits in the context of a game. You should also be able to objectively admit when an opposing team is superior to you, whether in regards of execution or strategy. It's okay to say “I'm not as good as they are.”

When your opposition have a superior strategical understanding compared to you, how do you win?

You fuck over their plans.

Okay, joke aside: you execute better. You rely on your manual dexterity and ability to pull off risky, low percentage plays in order to bridge the gap. In short, you gamble on your own skill.

In most cases of competitive gaming, players rely on high percentage plays in order to safely position themselves on the road to a victory. After all, safe play avoids mistakes. No mistakes means no room for being punished. But when that route doesn't work, fuck Order. Embrace Chaos. The primeval strategic void.

Keep everything fast paced. Keep everything hectic. Don't leave room for your opponents to breathe or set-up. Don't let battles resolve.

While Unicorns of Love are generally given as the example of a team that lives and dies on their “chaos-style” shotcalling – full of sub-optimal calls and plays that don't necessary make the most strategical sense, there's one team that are notorious for taking the opposite approach.

Elements/Alliance have always been a team afraid to pull the trigger when they're behind. Rather than risk a mistaken call, they avoid taking any shots at all and simply allow themselves to slowly bleed to death.

Froggen, the mid laner of Elements, is often regarded by many as quite possibly the best European mid laner of all time (and rightly so, he almost managed to win a season of OGN Champions). So in terms of execution, it's hard to believe Elements have much to fear from one of their highest impact roles potentially making a mistake.

Quit being a chicken, Froggen. You're the best. Act like it.

I mentioned in Part 2 to always assume your opponents will play the game properly – here I am going to contradict myself. When you've assessed you are mechanically better at the game than your opponent, assume you can force a mistake. Look for the opportunity to force a mistake. It doesn't matter how sub-optimal the call you make is. Make a call. Any call you can feasibly execute. Just go do it.

Before the Halo portion of my readership run away thinking this only applies to LoL, wait. Because I've even used specific examples in the past of the same notions. When I made a bracket preview for the HCSSeason 1 Finals, I mentioned in the Denial vs Str8 Rippin match-up that I thought Str8 Rippin could be favored on Shrine Team Slayer. My exact quote: “Str8's key to victory will be to keep the game fast and chaotic – don't let stalemates evolve. The less structured the game is, the more it's in Str8's favor.”

In this case, Str8 had a ton of explosive talent on their team with Str8 Sick, Prototype, and Naded's dominant Free for All gameplay. They were all players likely to win individual battles or be able to naturally react to battles going on elsewhere to clean them up – faster reactions, so to speak.

Chaos increases the degree of reactive gameplay required. Because it's harder to decide or predict what will happen next. You have less opportunity for proactive planning due to the increased pressure across the map, and thus must simply play your opponents rather than your own game.

If your opponents out-skill you, or execute better on an individual level, they will come out ahead in a chaotic situation.

And if you're thinking I'm talking out of my ass, and there's no precedent for using sub-optimal tactics to upset someone with superior strategic or tactical understanding:

Try reading about Anti-computer Tactics from chess. 

In the “Brains in Bahrain” event mentioned, the player knew he was superior in late game decision-making over the computer, so rather than try to play generally optimal openings, he chose to take the generally “riskier” route of playing hyperconservative (the best defense is a good offense!). Once he survived the computer's pre-planned strategical opening, the computer was in unfamiliar territory with less decision trees to allow it to properly analyze the situation. Because of this, the player managed to win two consecutive games. (In retrospect, this may be what Froggen is attempting to do when he plays so passively from behind.)

So, now that we've established that intentional sub-optimal gameplay is a real strategy with at least some merit... how do you go about shotcalling this manner?

The most important thing to note is that every voice is important when playing chaotic. You need a much higher information flow than slow-playing or taking a methodical, measured approach.

First, you need to identify a weakness in the enemy line-up. Whether this is a strategic weakness they have, or a player who you simply expect not to react properly to a surprise engagement from your team.

Attack the weak link. Regardless of whether contextually attacking that point makes sense at the given time, do it anyway. Even if it means giving something else up elsewhere. Don't hesitate.

Do they have a top laner who relies on being on an island? Send four people up there, dive the tower. Push the tower. Start to push another tower. Someone's coming? Abandon the push, go engage that player rotating up through the jungle.

Is this Lockout TS stalemate being held together by a player sitting BR1 who's known for losing BR fights? Hard push down low. Get people underneath library to ensure the spawns get split when you inevitably secure a kill or two. Now raise the pace. No huddle offense time.

(Mild tangent: Another League of Legends example of putting power into individual execution rather than team strategy can be seen in Season 3 Lemondogs. Lemondogs were a team that lived and died by 1-3-1 split pushing. They all had confidence they would outplay their opponents, so why wouldn't they just pressure every lane, right?)

This brings up point two: put your best players in position to make big plays on their own.

Pressure somewhere. Let them pressure somewhere else. You don't need to be in the same location to be impacting the game in the highest manner. (DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME COAST? YOUR OLAF DOES NOT HAVE TO STAND NEXT TO SIVIR WHEN HE'S FOUR KILLS AND 200 CS UP OVER HIS OPPONENT AND PUSHING AN INHIB UNCONTESTED!)

If your best player needs to be on his own in order to be effective, PLAY AROUND THAT PLAYER, rather than around the enemy team. Make the enemy team react to that player.

Peacock somewhere, feigning strength. Make it look like you're going to do something you have no intention of doing to see if there's a reaction.

Point 3: Once shit has hit the fan, keep throwing more shit into it.

Again, the point of Chaos-as-a-Gameplan is to introduce situations your opponent has not experienced (but you possibly have) in order to come out ahead.

The more pressure you keep applying, regardless of how wise it is, the more likely the opponent is not to know how to react to it, and to make a mistake.

And finally, call off the dogs when you've obtained a clear advantage.

Unless you have no game sense at all and don't know how to play properly with a lead, then once you've gotten a lead, you should play like you have it. If you think your lesser-executing opponents can wrest control of the match back from you while you return to optimal play, then chances are you were going to lose regardless of what strategy you employed.

Anyway, again, “chaos style” shot-calling is not “just mistakes” but rather intentional sub-optimal shotcalling in order to try to shift the game out of your opponent's comfort zone and into a manner where you can reign supreme.

It is not a be-all, end-all approach to playing a game, nor should it ever really be your first choice. It requires a high level of execution (much like S4 Fnatic's obsession with kite comps). If you are confident you are better at executing on a micro level than your opponents, by all means, try to play a chaotic style of play. It's admittedly a bit disrespectful, and by definition not the best way to play. But it can work and has valid reasons for doing so.

Again, it is by definition an unsafe way to play. Much like trying to aim a loose cannon.

This concludes part 3 of Calling the Shots – although this one was more aimed toward responding to a perspective than how to actually improve as a shotcaller, I felt it belonged in the series. I'll be working on Part 4 soon as well and trying to get that out soon.

Scrupulous Scrutiny: Improving your Self-Analysis in Reviewing Replays

So, you think you're pretty good at video games, huh? But you admit you're not the best. You know you make mistakes. You're humble enough to go back and watch replays of your gameplay to look for areas to improve. That's a good sign of a player who's going to improve. But what about when that VoD review doesn't seem to be helping you find what you're doing wrong? What if you think everything you're doing was right?

How do you approach VoD review in a way that ensures you're improving either the understanding of your mistakes or your understanding of the game?

I'm glad I asked!

If you're finding yourself unable to improve or find mistakes from reviewing your own gameplay, chances are you're not asking the right questions as you go through and watch. If you're not asking questions at all, well... I guess we found out why you're not improving.

Question everything. From everything you've done, to everything you see your opponent do, to everything your teammates do, to whatever's going on within the context of the rest of the game.

The most important question to ask when looking to improve:

Why did I do this?

If you can't understand why you did something, chances are high that it was a mistake. If you can't explain why you did something, you may need to explore the situation further. One thing to note, no matter how skilled you are at a game, the ability to understand something and to explain the same thing do not come hand in hand. Verbalizing instances is a separate skill and not always a necessary one for competitive gamers. (I refer to this mental iceberg often...) 

So, you've run into something you can't explain, but you're pretty sure you had a good reason for doing it. What do you do?

Pause the film. Ask, What are my options at this moment?

Before you answer the question, take a look at EVERY possible bit of information you can ingest. Don't answer based off whatever information you had at the time you made the decision to begin with. As you go, make a list of EVERY possible bit of information you can.

Take note of

• enemy positions
• ally positions
• your own position
• Weapons/Cooldowns/Abilities the enemy has available
• Weapons/Cooldowns/Abilities your allies have available
• Weapons/Cooldowns/Abilities you have available
• Major objectives that are immediately relevant
• Major objectives that may become relevant as the situation resolves
• Major objectives that may become relevant after the situation resolves
• Which players are reacting to the situation first
• Which players seem oblivious to the situation

Now that you've taken in all of the above information, do you have a good idea of the number of options you have available? If not, let's make a short list of generic choices...

• ATTACK THAT POOR BASTARD!
• Run away! HE SKERRY! Don't let him start a fight!
• HE SKERRY! HE STARTED DA FITE! Disengage!
• Move to help teammate
• Move too save teammate
• Sacrifice yourself for teammate
• Attempt to keep enemy from interfering outright
• Stall an enemy from interfering
• Isolate an enemy, then engage
• Feign a fight, then back off into help from teammates
• Pressure an objective somewhere else to try to deter the enemy from their current objective
• Trade an objective somewhere else for enemy's current objective
• Stall an enemy from their objective while your ally trades/takes more somewhere else.

These are just a few generic options that apply cross-genre. Evaluate how many of these options you have for the situation you haven't quite solved yet. For each time you're involved in engaging with the opponent (whether offensively or defensively), list the options you have for how to engage or disengage or stall for time for a teammate to help. Take note of which player is likely to get help first. Check all of the weapons or abilities you may use. Figure out which order of use gives the least windows for your opponent to react.

Throughout this process, you may often find you had options you didn't consider in the heat of the moment. Some of these options may be less optimal. Others may be much more optimal. Regardless, this analysis is a GOOD thing. It increases the amount of options weighing inside the intuitive mind during the game (Audley shut the fuck up about the fucking iceberg I get it okay?). Evaluating the effectiveness of the options while looking at the game analytically rather than while playing it increases your chances of making the right choice the next time.

But in the mean time... did you figure out why you made the decision in the first place?

No?

It's time to ask another question: What information did I miss?

No, not in your above evaluation. Now it's time to re-frame the situation from the whole picture you're currently looking at, back into the heat of the moment. When you made the decision, what information did you already have? Look carefully at what's going on. Did you see everything the first time? Look again. Did you notice any information you had access to that you may have missed before making the decision?

If everything seems to be in order and all the information you acted upon is there, then you ask the next question:

What assumptions did I make?

Because in most cases, you won't have full information when you're making the decision, you have to fill in the blanks. Whether you're doing this consciously or not, you're making assumptions about the state of other players. (If you don't believe me, think back to the last time you asked “WHY THE FUCK IS x HERE?” in a fit of rage after dying to something unexpected. Yep, you assumed he would be playing differently.)

Compare your assumptions to the big picture / full information scenario. Were they correct? Were they wrong? SHOULD they have been correct (was someone else playing sub-optimally or better than you understood)?

Assumptions are not a bad thing to make in games, but they should definitely be taken lightly. If you act on an incorrect assumption, you're making a low percentage play. I mentioned in Part 2 of my shotcalling blog that you should almost always assume your opponent is going to play correctly / make the best decisions. If something smells like bait, it probably is. If you're blind to an objective being taken, but it's the right decision to take or bait that objective, that's probably what's going on.

Unlike your opponents however, it's often wise to assume your teammates (especially in solo queue) are going to make the wrong play / a bad decision. This is why communication is important, whether you communicate through typing, pings, or just saying “Hey follow what I do and we'll win.” – if you're in a situation where voice chat is able to be done, explain what you're intending to do in order to avoid your teammates having to assume what you will do, as well as to avoid assuming what your teammates will do (assuming you all talk in terms of intentions.)

By this point, you should have gotten an idea of why you made the decision in the first place (and if not, you may be fucked beyond all hope, or may just need to ask someone better than you for help.)

But, along the way, you may have discovered some better options that you could have done. So let's backtrack to the “What are my options?” and ask a second question: How did my opponent react to my decision?

If they reacted aggressively, there's a good chance they had some information you were not accounting for (or they made an assumption they were stronger in the moment.) If they reacted passively, they made the assessment or assumption that you were the stronger force in the instance. You can gloss over your opponent's options/assumptions to try to better understand why your opponent reacted the way they did, but often times their initial reaction gives plenty of information about their self-perceived state.

While still focusing on your opponent's reaction, there's one more question to ask. Regardless of their reaction (which, as I said is a decent barometer for how they expected the situation to play out), ask How could I have altered his perceptions?

If you were attempting to bait your opponent into making a bad decision, but he reacted passively, did he have information that could have been denied? If you were attempting to peacock and he aggressed onto you, did he evaluate you were weaker? Did he underestimate you? Overestimate?

I assume you're reading this because you're doing part of a team game. So that means you have teammates also making decisions on the fly. So after you've figured out why your opponent reacted the way he did...it's time to ask:

How did my teammates react to my decision?

If there was a teammate nearby you expected to help or join in on the play (or in the case of LoL, across map with teleport you expected to come in) then ask: Who could've helped me? Then ask what their options were. Skim your teammates' nearby opponents' option. Could the opponent have stopped your teammate from helping you? Then chances are you expected too much of your teammate. (Was this a miscommunication or a bad assumption from you?)

Unless your team has some sort of shotcalling schematic set up (which is unlikely in the case you're self-reviewing to improve your solo queue gameplay), then chances are you're operating off assumptions and your teammates are making decisions based off reactions rather than cohesive plans made ahead of time. If your expectations of a teammate are at odds with how your teammate actually reacted, either your communication needs improved, or one of you made a mistake.

Take on your teammate's perspective of your play for a moment. If roles were reversed, what would you have expected your teammate to do?

By now you have a very clear picture of why you did what you did. And along the way, you may have found a few areas where your expectations of the situation didn't match up with how it actually played out.

Now let's frame the situation a little more by asking another question:

How did I get in this situation in the first place?

Oftentimes when you're in a position to make a mistake, you often made other decisions on the way there. Granted, if you're asking “Why did I do this?” over every step of the way, you'll already have this question answered. But in laying out other options, you may find a way to avoid putting yourself in the position to make the mistake. Ask yourself, What could I have done to avoid this situation?

After acknowledging your potential pre-emptive routes, it's time to look at the other end of the chronological spectrum...the future. How can the result of this situation play out?

Consider options both good and bad; proactive, reactive, aggressive, passive, whether you're trying to catch up or get further ahead. Pick what you think the best decision is from the current situation. Resume your video.

Did you make the decision you expected to be the correct one?

You didn't? What did you do? Well now... it's time to ask yourself...

1. Why did I do this?
   1. What are my options at the moment?
      1. What aggressive options do I have?
      2. What passive options do I have?
      3. Did I take the best option?
   2. What information did I miss?
      1. Did I see everything right the first time / in game?
      2. Was there something else I should have seen that I didn't?
   3. What assumptions did I make?
      1. Were my assumptions correct/incorrect?
      2. SHOULD they have been correct?
         1. Did I assume the best of my opponents?
         2. Did I assume the worst of my teammates?
         3. Did I properly communicate my intentions to teammates?
   4. How did my opponent react to my decision?
      1. What were his options?
      2. What were his assumptions?
      3. How could I have altered his perceptions?
         1. Does he have more information than I expected?
         2. Could I have appeared stronger?
         3. Did he mis-evaluate me?
   5. How did my teammates react to my decision?
      1. Who could have helped me?
      2. What were their options?
         1. Did I expect too much of them?
            • Was this a miscommunication or a bad assumption?
         2. What did they expect of me?
2. How did I get in this situation in the first place?
   1. What could I have done to avoid this situation?
3. How can the result of this situation play out?
   1. What is the best decision from here?
      1. Did I make that decision?

Just rinse and repeat this rubric of rhetoric as you review your replays. You will find you better understand your own gameplay, and if you can find where your assumptions, assessments, or expectations are wrong, you can begin to improve your ability to make the right decisions in the future by correcting your approach.

So, happy VoD-hunting, self-reviewing gamer. Hope this helps!

Calling the Shots: Part 2 – Limited Range

Some time last year, I started a multi-part series about shotcalling in competitive gaming, starting with discussing victory conditions. I said I wasn't sure when the next part would come, but I didn't mean to leave you in suspense for 16 months (oops!).

Anyway, it's time to revive the series with the next important part of shotcalling. Apart from knowing what it will take to win a game, there is one more important piece of information: KNOW YOUR LIMITS.

Sorry, Cady, that's just not true.

When you're ahead, you almost always want to get further ahead. You want to put the game out of reach of your opponents. But in order to do that, you need to make sure you don't end up overreaching and making mistakes.

Too many League of Legends games get thrown by a team believing they can stay for the inhibitor and ending up getting aced, losing Baron, losing an ensuing team fight, and consequently the game. Halo games can be thrown over a forced flag run leading to the team all dead and enabling the team to set up a counter cap (RIP every Sanc Flag game ever.) You were too confident in your abilities to make a play that wasn't going to happen, and gave away the game.

But Audley, how do I learn my limits?

Step 1: Play more. Be willing to experiment whenever the stakes are low. You learn limits through practice. Whether that practice is directed practice like scrims or micro drills (practicing CSing in LoL or jumps in Halo), practice helps you learn what you can and can't do. Even if you're playing solo queue, don't be afraid to try new things. You can never know if something has the potential to work unless you try it.

Competitive play revolves around high percentage plays and consistency. Practice does not. Practice is where you not only improve your play, but learn exactly what you can and cannot do.

Part of this is why players with thousands of games on a single champion in LoL tend to be really good at that champion – they know what risks aren't really risks. They've been in the situation before. Their mental iceberg tells them “Hey, we've been here. Do this.” – they know their limits and come away with an individual play that works.

“But Audley, I know my personal limits. How do I learn the limits of the 3-4 other guys on my team?”

I'm glad you asked, Reader. And for that, I point to one of the world's best shot callers ever to grace Summoner's Rift in LoL. Mata, formerly of Samsung White, now on Vici Gaming. Although he's not at Worlds this year, it's pretty hard to say Mata is to fault for Vici's failures. The team played a fantastic cerebral style of play and won games off incredibly smart plays. With MVP / Samsung White, Mata won two seasons of OGN Champions and a World Championship. It was fairly common knowledge Mata was the shotcaller of the team. When he was on point, the team executed as a well-oiled machine. When he was thrown off his game, the team looked like a mess. When White were on point, it was hard to find a player more aware of how to win than Mata.

But there's one fact about Mata most people are unaware of: he had multiple Korean solo queue accounts in Challenger tier. And on each one, he mained a different role. He wasn't a support only player in Solo Queue. He also played Jungle and (I believe?) mid lane extensively. This enables him to know the limits of other lanes on his team. It helps him learn match-ups and the needs of his teammates.

You don't necessarily have to attempt to play other roles to improve as a shotcaller (though, it definitely helps) – at the very least, however, you should try to observe your teammates in practice and discuss their mindset during their games (or while watching replays together).

Ask a few questions such as

• Why did you do that?
• What would happen if you did this...?
• (In the case that he's losing) – What do you need to come back from this?
• (In the case that he's winning) – How do you keep your opponent from coming back?
• How do you deal with pressure in this situation?
• How could pressure be relieved in this situation? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Learn how your teammates think. Learn their limits, or at least the limits of their style of play. Knowing these helps you know what you can get away with.

Other than practice and post-game discussion, there is one other important way to assess your limits, and is key during a game.

Step 2: Get more information. Most competitive games are Imperfect Information games, where you do not know everything that is going on for the other team. Whether hidden in fog of war or simply not visible to your personal camera, knowing what's going on elsewhere is important to knowing what your limits can be.

It's probably not a coincidence Mata is one of the best shotcallers in the world and also one of the supports with the most wards placed. In League of Legends, vision is information. Madlife rose to power known for being one of the first players to time even the most minute of cooldowns of his opponents.

Beyond mini-maps and vision control in LoL, communication is your key to information influx. This applies to any game – especially First Person Shooters. A mistake many make is simply communicating what's going on among enemies. Calling out targets, calling out weapons, et cetera.

If you want to know your limits, you also need to know your teammates' status. In shooters, communication focused on telling your teammates where you are helps them know how soon they could have help or come help, or where their team's gaps in vision or sight line coverage may be. In League of Legends, it may help them know when your important engage abilities will be ready to go.

Whether you're the shotcaller or not, focus on proactive communication. Speak about what you CAN do, or SHOULD do in a situation. It helps the team create a much more clear picture of how to move forward, rather than focusing on what an enemy is capable of. Think in terms of enemy perfect execution, and plan the best way to play against it. Always give your opponents the respect of assuming they will play the game properly.

Silent moments are moments where information isn't being generated. Information should be generated constantly throughout a game. If no one is talking, get the wheels turning by asking questions as the shotcaller. “Can you do this?” “Can we do this?” “Where can we push?” “What [cooldowns/weapons] do you have?” “How close are you to [item/weapon/location]?”

TALK.  TALK MORE.  NEVER STOP TALKING.

You'll never have a complete picture of the game. You must make decisions based off an incompleted jigsaw, or a painting where the colors haven't been blended all the way just yet. Every bit of information your teammates feed to you fill the picture just a little bit more to help you know what call to make, or what calls to avoid as you learn the situation a little bit better.

But regardless, getting into the minds of your teammates in and out of game and objectively assessing yours and their abilities will help you KNOW YOUR LIMITS as a team, and as a result, help you call the shots in a way that reduces mistakes and leads your team to more victories.

I'm not sure when part 3 will come (hopefully it won't be another 16 months ;D) but this series isn't done just yet.

Also, I've added a Paypal Donate link to the main page of my blog. If you enjoy my blogs and would like to see more of them, I encourage you to Donate in order to help me get closer to quitting my day job in fast food to focus on writing and game design. If you can't afford/don't want to donate but still enjoy the blog, PLEASE, comment / tweet / message me and let me know what you enjoy / what you'd like to see more of! I've got a few plans for upcoming entries, and I intend to write more in the upcoming days, but any support you can give me (verbal or monetary) is greatly appreciated!

Audley out.

Halo 4 Global Championships: When Marketing Campaigns play Dress-Up as eSports

Disclaimer: I want to make it absolutely clear that 343, the players, and the commentators were absolutely fantastic this weekend.  Nothing I'm about to say is directed toward any of those three groups unless I explicitly mention them in the statement.

So...how about those Halo 4 Global Championships?  They were pretty fantastic, right?

Audley Enough, it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I saw some tweets about how it was a great tournament.  And here's where I'm going to stop you, and correct you.

That was an awful tournament.  It was a good show.  It was a good (expensive) marketing campaign.  But again, from a competitive integrity standpoint, that tournament was terrible.

First, the format.  A...100+ team FFA feed into a 4-player 1v1 BEST OF ONE finals?  The fuck is that?  Best of one?  Really?  Now, time constraints are one thing, but getting yourself so constrained that you have to limit yourself to best of ones for GRAND FINALS for (one of) the LARGEST PRIZE POOLS Halo has ever seen?  That's pretty fucked up.  Seriously.

FPS titles have traditionally been a showcase of multiple maps and sometimes multiple game variants.  Hell, even Quake Live, which still gets played at Dreamhack events has Best of 3 finals showing off three different maps.  And if you're unfamiliar, its format is always 1v1.

By my next statement I mean no offense to the winner, Aaron Elam...but when a player openly admits to only having practiced for an event for about a week prior and ends up winning Two HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars at said event over players who have put in substantially more time and effort...you know the format of the tournament is a little fucked.  Again, don't take this statement wrong.  Ace played fantastically and he earned his win...but as someone who preaches practice, I can't help but feel if there was a little bit more consistency required of the tournament, he may not have seen as great of success.  I still extend my congratulations to him.  Hey, he was the first Halo pro to have ever had me on his friend's list.  I can't hate.

Secondly, the trailers.

Okay, what the fuck.  This is a Halo tournament, right?  It's the HALO FOUR GLOBAL CHAMPIONSHIPS, right?

WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SHOWING ME A FUCKING TRAILER FOR BATTLEFIELD 4 AND FUCKING PLANTS VERSUS ZOMBIES GARDEN WARFARE?  I don't go to LoL events and expect to see a trailer for DotA2.  You know why?  BECAUSE THEY FUCKING SHOW YOU LEAGUE OF LEGENDS at LEAGUE OF LEGENDS EVENTS.

For this to have been as marketing-focused as it was, I'm confused as fuck as to what Microsoft was actually trying to market.  I mean, they gave us some of the most limited scope of what Halo has to offer as humanly possible -- FFA and 1v1s of a team game... And then they go off and show us three trailers for three different shooters all coming to the XBox One console.  This event's about Halo, right?  So why are you trying to draw us to different shooters, Micro$oft?

Thirdly, the production.

Wait, the production?  Those production values were insane, Audley!  What are you smoking?

I'm not going to disagree that the production values were insane.  But the part that bugged me about it was how painfully scripted it was.  If you couldn't tell the two hosts were reading from a teleprompter, you weren't watching.  Granted, they would go off-script on occasion...but in those instances, it was the only time the two would actually engage each other or their surroundings during the show.  Otherwise, they just kept looking forward.  You could even feel when they felt the teleprompted jokes ("Spartan badassery") were too forced, and grit their teeth to grind through it.

I know Riot and the LCS use teleprompters, and often the casters read from it when setting up transitions.  However, most have enough genuine character of their own merit that it doesn't feel as awkward.

I do want to make it clear -- I enjoyed my time in Benaroya Hall during the finals.  It was a good show.  It was executed very well, and the games were intense and fun to watch.  But when I see people praising the event and lauding it as proof that "Halo is back!" and "343 gets it" I just shudder.

I repeat what I've said all along: Halo 4's launch state being poor isn't 343's fault.  That launch state is a publisher issue, not a developer one.  Publisher determines release date, and when something's released with no beta, tons of bugs, and missing content, you don't say "Oh, well clearly that's what the developer wanted.  What idiots."  That's a "Big Daddy Moneybags decided we had to release by this date or we wouldn't get paid."  Oh, and by the way... Microsoft Game Studios published Halo 4.

Also, how soon do you think an event that size will get done again?  Microsoft and Virgin gaming just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for a tournam-err, excuse me, MARKETING CAMPAIGN, that had a couple months worth of qualifiers, weeks worth of headaches for the staff that had to moderate the online qualifiers (I honestly feel for Bravo and bsangel after seeing some of the tweets they got every time a loss or a leave happened during the Online quals.).  If they manage to do another one of these before PAX Prime of NEXT year, I'll be speechless.

Microsoft still hasn't shown that they understand eSports...neither from a format standpoint, nor from the standpoint of building storylines.  Hell, there wasn't TIME to build storylines with this mega-condensed faux-tourney they held this past weekend.  I don't even recall Bravo or Goldenboy mentioning that Ace's older brother happened to be at the Halo 4 GC as well (and, if you saw, ran onto stage to hug him when he won).

So for me, this was not an entirely reassuring experience.  It still shows a deep ignorance of competitive gaming from the corporate dogs at Microsoft and there's still miles of room for improvement in nearly every avenue.  I hope Microsoft takes a more serious approach to one of its most historically successful franchises and attempts to turn this into a more focused attempt to bring the series back to what it used to be, rather than an attempt to dump money onto a game whose fans are turning away from it in a half-assed attempt to bring them back to the game.  I sincerely hope the latter is not the case.

Anyway, in closing...  I want to thank 343, all of the players (even Gamesager), Goldenboy, Gh057Ayame, Microsoft, Virgin Gaming, and PAX Prime for enabling the Halo 4 Global Championships to happen.  It is a step...maybe not in the right direction, but at least in a less-wrong direction...toward bringing Halo back to the limelight.  And without all of their help combined, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to rant about it.

It was a great experience, and the finals were extremely tense.  Regardless of my gripes, I'm still elated that I went.  And I hope to see more in the future.  I leave you with photographic proof that "Halo is dad" though.  Gandhi and Maven casting Call of Duty:

Competitive Gaming: Hunting Big Game for Sport

So, it's been a while since I've written an Audley Enough. I've been busy as a Halo Coach and more recently as a writer/blogger for MLG. Lately, I've been following the professional gaming scene even closer, and one debate just keeps springing up wherever I go.

"Should competitive games be labeled as sports?"

Now, I'm sure 95% of my audience just said, "No, they're not athletic, so they're not sports."

What's my catchphrase? NO. SHUT UP. YOU'RE WRONG.

And since that's not a valid way to argue, I'll go ahead and be so kind as to break down the argument and explain, in detail, why I personally believe eSports should be qualified and viewed by outsiders as actual sports.

First, going to drop a few dictionary definitions.

sport
noun
1.
an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

So, the dictionary definition of sport is that it is an athletic activity. "Ha, Audley, you're wrong after all!" Read further.

ath·let·ic
adjective
(I deleted 1 and 2 of athletic because they were actually less descriptive.)
3.
of or pertaining to athletes; involving the use of physical skills or capabilities, as strength, agility, or stamina: athletic sports; athletic training.

ath·lete
noun
a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.


Athletic - something with athletes that requires physical skills.
Athlete - a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.

There's no denying video games require a great deal of hand-eye coordination in order to play. In fact, apart from thinking and reacting to the information given on screen, the majority of gaming is hand-eye coordination. You move your joystick or mouse, your character (or army) moves across the screen. An enemy army appears, you see it, you move it as fast as you possibly can to get the fuck out of there! It's ALL reaction time.

Hand-eye coordination is an athletic ability. It's what allows baseball players to hit a tiny ball with an oversized stick. It's what allows basketball players to arc a ball into a hoop. It's what allows boxers to not get knocked the fuck out. Sure, these other sports I'm naming ALSO require stamina, strength, speed, et cetera, but I would go so far as to argue that several competitive games require a greater deal of hand-eye coordination than these sports to make up for that (maybe not boxing...but that depends on how much you're reading an opponent's muscles versus how much you're just hiding behind two arms and getting beaten up waiting for an opening). Information is presented for fractions of seconds and players must react to them accordingly.

If you have slow reaction speeds, or can't really get your hands and eyes on the same page (I have stupid fingers, I know what it's like)...you will fail at competitive gaming. It is both a talent and a physical skill which can be trained and improved upon.

Some competitors even go so far as to train in gyms in order to improve their body's physical strength, believing quite firmly that this physical training benefits their reaction time and mental health when competing in the game of their choice. Flamesword and Roy of Halo, and eG.InControl of StarCraft II are a few examples of this.

But here, I'm just arguing semantics, which is not my goal. Come on, you know me better than that. I push the envelope with my arguments.

The crux of my argument comes down to three bullet points. Competitive games should be viewed as sports because:
1) Participants have to invest large quantities of time in practice in order to remain competitive.
2) Competitive games gather a significant number of spectators to watch the players or teams compete. If there are no spectators, there is no sport. It's just two guys in a dick-waving contest.
3) Players, now, are capable of making a livelihood off practicing and playing their game.

The latter two of those are recent developments, sure, as eSports have exploded into wide popularity with StarCraft 2 and League of Legends driving competitive gaming to a new level of popularity.

The first bullet, regarding practice (Yes, Allen Iverson, we're talking about Practice. Again.) is one I've talked about in a past Audley Enough. Skills go dull when they're not kept sharp. And, above, I explained that video games do require skill. Not that I had to, we all know competitive games are competitive because someone can be better than someone else at them.

I don't feel I really need to explain the logic behind including practice. It's self-explanatory, and I kinda feel like I'd be beating a horse that's already been turned to glue and bits. So let's move on.

Spectators. They matter.

As I said in the bullet, without spectators, a competition between participants is ultimately just for naught. There's no fan investment. There's no glory. There's no being hoisted above the shoulders of Billy Iwannagopro and carried off the field. It's just you, and some butthurt guy you beat in something.

Sports are played for spectators. Even as far back as the gladiators, sports were all about pleasing the people in the seats of the arena just as much as seeing who would win. If there weren't asses in the seats of the arena, it's just two slaves beating the shit out of one another until one dies. Or a man stupidly wrestling a lion. We'd label him a lunatic, not an athlete.

Spectator numbers for eSports have been skyrocketing recently. This isn't arguable -- MLG has been releasing numbers for their viewership after each tournament, and numbers have been consistently going up. Fandom of StarCraft 2 and now League of Legends is expanding rapidly, and even gaining mainstream viewership as events like BarCraft are getting organized worldwide.

(For those of you that don't know what BarCraft is -- it's essentially a giant party and at a local bar, where StarCraft II tournaments are streamed. There is also Bar of Legends, which is essentially the same thing but for LoL. If this sort of thing interests you, check www.reddit.com/r/BarCraft for more details and attempt to find a local BarCraft.)

At MLG Providence, the viewership among males aged 18-24 surpassed MTV, FX, Comedy Central, and TBS for the weekend and over 3.6 million hours of combined video were consumed over the course of the weekend among the 1.2 million unique online viewers. (Source: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/news/mlg-delivers-the-largest-season-in-esports-history The 1.2 million comes from dividing amount of video by average viewing time per viewer. Logical maths.) Concurrent viewers jumped from 138,000 at Raleigh, to 180,000 at Orlando, to over 240,000 in Providence. The spectator base for eSports as a whole is rapidly growing.

A large part of this is that the games themselves are being designed to be more friendly to spectators. The mechanics have less senseless complexity. Visuals are being "cleaned" up to make it rather clear to viewers what's happening on screen. Games are given Spectator Mode so commentators broadcasting the game can give a full picture of the game's goings-on, much like the SkyCam set-ups in football games. Additionally (and again, much like real sports in this age), commentators are required to have a deep enough knowledge of the game to translate the in-game action to the viewing faithful. Through graphical and mechanical enhancements over the years, video games have reached a state of watchability by a much larger market than there was back in the days of colored squares and slightly different colored squares, and those in control of broadcasts have a lot more control over what is communicated to the viewers.

Commentators like Day9 go a long way in bridging top-level gaming to new and experienced viewers alike, with a combination of colorful humor and deep game knowledge that makes complex maneuvers understandable to even the most n00bish of n00bs.

The existence of a large spectator base helps facilitate the next bullet point: the players have to be able to make a livelihood off their game. No, I'm not discounting college sports (see: scholarships) or amateur events like the Olympic games (which, I'm pretty sure they have sponsors to feed them anyway).

But up until recently, gamers still had to work part-time or full-time jobs in order to get by in life. Three things have changed. Prize money, sponsors, and the advent of streaming.

Prize money has gone up for many of the games we label as eSports. Not necessarily at individual tournaments, but the quantity of tournaments and leagues that are able to sustain themslves has increased dramatically with the success of new competitive games. But prize money is only awarded to players who...well...win. If only winners got paid in sports, the Columbus Blue Jackets would be one broke-ass organization.

This is where sponsors and streaming come in. Sponsors, whether they be sponsor teams like vVv, TeamLiquid, Evil Geniuses, Complexity, Quantic Gaming, or Dignitas, or products/organizations like Red Bull, Stride Gum, or Dr. Pepper, take off a chunk of the financial burden on players by paying their way to the tournaments they attend. I'm not entirely sure about the details these sponsor teams go through, but on several recent podcasts (vVv's Loser's Bracket and Live On Three to name a couple), eSports personalities like djWHEAT, SirScoots, and LordJerith have mentioned that sponsors are actually able to make money off eSports these days and give a livelihood not only to the players, but also to coaches, commentators, and even little guys like me who simply write about games.

This, of course, trickles down to players. Team houses are springing up in the American eSports scene. Team houses are a staple among Korean StarCraft players, but only recently have American teams and players become able to afford the investment. In StarCraft, Evil Geniuses have a team house. In League of Legends, Team Solo Mid have their own place in New York. Even in Halo, pro player Naded is attempting to reach out and start a team house. For the latter two teams, which aren't under any major sponsorships like EG, they are paying for their house through one of the best things to happen to eSports: Streaming.

Thanks to organizations like Twitch.TV and own3d.TV, players are able to sustain themselves financially through streaming. For more popular games like StarCraft or League of Legends, the income is quite a bit more substantial than, say, Halo Reach (where the most popular pro streamer, Ninja, rarely reaches 1000 viewers...compared to the several thousand to over-nine-thousand of League of Legends pro players.) However, players are able to partner with these two companies and include advertisements on their stream, and for each view (or thousand views) the ads get, the players earn money, simply for playing (and practicing) their game.

This has a doubly beneficial effect since it allows players to invest more time into practice, which ups the level of competition, which can gain more fans for the game, which can increase stream numbers. Players that don't have to work a full or part-time job to sustain their livelihood and can instead just invest their time into practicing are given a leg up on their competition. It also serves as a way for players and fans to interact with one another, through streamers offering community rewards, or through simply talking in chats for the streams. In this manner, players can earn more fans for themselves, meaning more retained stream viewers, meaning more revenue.

Through streaming and the growth of sponsor teams, players are getting larger exposure and are finally becoming able to support themselves outside of tournament rewards.

So, I've made my three points. And I know it's not the standard argument people use in the "is professional gaming a sport or not?" -- but I am of the opinion that as long as you're arguing about the physical demand of the game (which, professional gaming DOES have, mind you) they're only arguing semantics, and the argument will go nowhere.

I feel sports need to be defined not by the skills required, but by the goal to be brought out through the competitions. The amount of competition and skill (physical or otherwise) required to compete is not particularly arguable for competitive gaming as a whole (though some individual games may be argued). However, as competitive gaming is growing, the focus of tournaments is shifting toward the spectators, much like many of the sports we've known and loved for the last century, and the competitors of these games are becoming able to focus on it as a career. This paradigm shift is what I believe (and debate) qualifies competitive gaming as a sport.

If you really have that much trouble with the name, because you think gamers are all unathletic nerdsacks and nothing they ever do could possibly be qualified as a "sport", at least acknowledge our collective banner and rallying cry of eSports. This call goes out to members of the FGC as well -- I know you separate yourself from eSports (and, based off precedent, I don't blame you) -- but for the good of both our communities, we need to unite and show off the power of competitive gaming and eSports.

Look forward to my next Audley Enough...whenever it may be. You know how few and far between these can be. However, I think I shall be writing again soon, with a deeper look at how games need to be designed for Spectators in order to be successful tournament games these days. I wonder why that is...