Is Videogaming becoming a spectator sport for the masses?

[Mills]

Found this about how videogaming is fast becoming a spectator sport for audiences.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28923671

Slightly off topic, a little link at HOG 'HeartOfGaming'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28202061

[Udderdude]

Old media discovers Twitch, actual news at 11 ..

[Mills]

Yeah. Who would have thought in this day and age, that you and I could become a global digital superstar for just being a little bit more skillful than everyone else on a videogame.

[Plasmo]

The whole topic is off topic since it's not about shmups.

Shmups are as unpopular as it could get. Media doesn't care at all because the masses don't care.

[Obiwanshinobi]

When the cabs could be found out in the wild, it very much was a spectator sport for the masses (the sole reason why arcade games are cut out to be spectacular). Nowadays YouTube is where it's at.

[Mills]

The whole topic is off topic since it's not about shmups.

Shmups are as unpopular as it could get. Media doesn't care at all because the masses don't care.

Your missing the point of the topic which is about status of videogaming in which shumps is a part of. The topic is about events like this and STUNFEST 2014 in which people and players come together to interact.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23047460

[Obiwanshinobi]

It's not like they wouldn't gather together to interact back in the day, whether it was in an arcade or office.

[Udderdude]

just being a little bit more skillful

Understatement of the century .. those pro players treat the game like a job. 6-8 hours a day, every day. They live off that shit. Their job is literally to beat everyone else at their game. D:

It's like comparing Starcraft 2 diamond league players versus top level players that go all the way to the quarterfinals.

[Ghegs]

Moved to Off Topic.

[Smraedis]

I like how in the video article, that these tournaments and the huge prize monies are funded from advertisers but the reporter wouldn't provide the name of the football ground that it is held in, because of it currently being named after a company...

[SuperGrafx]

I do see the appeal of spectating games that I have no desire to play through.
Also, lately I'll pull up random Youtube videos of games that I could never finish as a youth. Always interesting to see the solution to a particularly tough part that stumped me in some games.

[ZacharyB]

When I was young, around 7-10, I would go to the local arcade just to watch, because I was reluctant to spend the money needed to play the games all the way through. The kind of person I was, I didn't care about skill; only the experience of being in the game mattered. I handled that vicariously. (I often wondered why skilled guys would die, impatiently punch down the continue counter, and then put in another quarter. "But you just lost all your progress!" I thought.)

I suppose things haven't changed much... people might want to watch games they don't want to buy, just for the experience. Like watching a movie. Especially since we're no longer dealing with quarter-inch-wide pixels and bleeping sound effects.

[Formless God]

Understatement of the century .. those pro players treat the game like a job. 6-8 hours a day, every day. They live off that shit. Their job is literally to beat everyone else at their game. D:

Isn't this basically the same as competitive sport?

[trap15]

Yeah, pretty much. Too bad esports are so stupid and have such a toxic culture.

[cools]

Zero interest in competitive or even skill/score play gaming streamed.

However, I have a large soft spot for cooperative silliness in Minecraft, even though the game itself I find uninteresting to play. So I watch all of the Yogscast Minecraft series regularly.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, pretty much. Too bad esports are so stupid and have such a toxic culture.

I'm not too intimately familiar with it, as I rarely care enough to pay attention to whatever drama might arise from time to time, but is the "toxic culture" surrounding fighters/rts/etc. really that extreme?

[drauch]

Dunno about RTS, but fighting games are almost entirely bros. Watching EVO is like watching NCAA.

[Mills]

I like how in the video article, that these tournaments and the huge prize monies are funded from advertisers but the reporter wouldn't provide the name of the football ground that it is held in, because of it currently being named after a company...

Coventry football stadium.
The way I see it is that the shumps community, needs to look at the BIG PICTURE and take the opportunity of events like this to keep the industry alive and in view of the public domain, regardless if viewing public are fans are not.
Videogaming/gambling trade show events need to take the opportunity of hosting events instead of just showcasing their games for business.

[drauch]

What "BIG PICTURE" are you talking about? What are we supposed to do, go rent out a stadium and do score attacks? I think you're missing the appeal of most professional gaming, and that's 1v1 competition. Nobody gives a shit about watching two dudes duke it out to Twinkle Star Sprites or Game Paradise. These are way different games that are primarily boring to viewers and inaccessible to others.

[Mills]

What "BIG PICTURE" are you talking about? What are we supposed to do, go rent out a stadium and do score attacks? I think you're missing the appeal of most professional gaming, and that's 1v1 competition. Nobody gives a shit about watching two dudes duke it out to Twinkle Star Sprites or Game Paradise. These are way different games that are primarily boring to viewers and inaccessible to others.

"Nobody gives a shit" is that your view of numbers of people turned up or tuned in to watch what went down at Stunfest 2014.

[dunpeal2064]

I wonder if the 10k+ people that watch Cosmo stream Ocarina virtually every time he plays realize that they don't give a shit, since its not a 1v1 competition.

LoL isn't 1v1 and has a pretty large spectator base too.

[Squire Grooktook]

These are way different games that are primarily boring to viewers and inaccessible to others.

I would have to disagree here, shmup replays are often quite thrilling due to their seeming chaoticness (even if in actuality, the player has everything routed out and planned to a t), and I've heard a very large number of non shmup players note or comment that they find replays of shmups very enjoyable to watch., even if they don't enjoy actually playing them.

Perhaps the only disadvantages to them as a spectator sport, is that repeat viewings of the same game would likely wain in appeal for a casual fan due to the initial hype of seeing the hypnotic patterns and boss gimmicks for the first time wearing off. The same could be said of many speed run channels however, which seem to boast a surprising amount of consistent viewership.

[Blinge]

Its probably because speedruns are taking a game people are already familliar with and might have played/enjoyed, and showing it be played/destroyed in an entirely different way. That's the entry into watching speed runners for a lot of viewers, i'd wager.
A newb getting into shmups still has that entrance barrier

[dunpeal2064]

Indeed, that is a fair point. I was just saying the appeal isn't limited to 1v1 fighters.

I would wager that, if people did get into speedrunning via that exposure, that shmups may closely follow. You start watching a speedrun because you are familiar with the game, but you get into it because you like routing, weighing risk vs reward, doing run after run trying to hit every trick back to back

... its basically just imposing standard shmup rules into regular games. I could see there being some cross interest.

[Moniker]

Recently got into speedrunning, or at least watching it. Awesome Games Done Quick is pretty entertaining. I recommend folks give it a look. Started out coz I think I might wanna start getting good at Super Metroid or Metroid Zero Mission, but all of it's pretty great.

Apparently they raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity twice a year from marathon streaming. Kind of amazing that that's even possible, given the niche nature of the community.

[drauch]

Wasn't implying it was just fighters, but the obviously more popular spectator "sport" of gaming revolves around RTS, fighters and FPS.

I don't know what Stunfest is. Don't care. Too ignorant to look it up.

You goobers are acting like I think shmups are objectively boring to everyone. Guess what forum I'm in? Who the fuck is Cosmo and why do people care? When you're talking about the masses, yes, people are going to watch shit like Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear solid and Mario. Some of the most popular and mainstream games of all time, just like Batsugun!.

Sorry, the casual Youtube/internet community obsessed with Zelda isn't a compelling argument to why people would be interested in watching shmups. I guess we could get PewDiePie to play them. LoL large spectator base.

[Raytrace]

Wasn't implying it was just fighters, but the obviously more popular spectator "sport" of gaming revolves around RTS,

I have to say I really don't understand why people would watch RTS's - then again I don't play them so...

[DEL]

To address the thread title, videogaming IS becoming more and more of a spectator sport. I was surprised to see the 300 plus crowd at Stunfest hollering and generally getting very excited by large-screen 2D shoot'em up runs , especially knowing that 90% of that crowd were general videogame enthusiasts and not shmup players. So it was heartening.

The 1 on 1 fighting scene is waaay larger though and the whole thing is niche, so I'm not expecting much National Media coverage of videogame events.
Starkey from the HoG arcade in London told me that he's done no less than 5 TV segments in the last year, plus a 4 page spread in EDGE magazine and numerous University and School trips have been to his arcade. All of which is also positive news.

[Squire Grooktook]

Sorry, the casual Youtube/internet community obsessed with Zelda isn't a compelling argument to why people would be interested in watching shmups.

What about the casual internet youtube community obsessed with 2huuuuuu

I think shmups could easily rival speed running. While the games aren't as well known, they make up for it with flash and chaos, and some of them have excellent presentation. They are also a fair bit more approachable than speed running due to their more simplistic and more immediately intuitive playstyles.

[drauch]

Well, I think the internet is obsessed with Touhou for the wrong reasons, plus it was sort of a meme thing, unfortunately. I won't open up this can of worms again.

That's the thing, though: I love speed running, and I love watching strategy videos and 1ccs and all that good stuff as well. From an outside perspective, though, I just don't see shmups as a welcome form of entertainment for the masses. Take a platformer, a genre everyone is very familiar with from their childhood and do some crazy things, and people are going to be impressed, especially when you look at rather infamous Konami and Capcom titles deemed "impossible" by scrubby standards. We all know shmups are crazy in depth and take loads of practice to learn enemy placement and chaining and all those goodies, but it's just not something I can see the public get into and appreciate on that level. Pick up Mario and just plug away, and you don't have to explain much. Put on a shmup with confusing scoring mechanics and a million bullets on the screen (with no lolis) and it's going to turn people off.

I dunno, I'm right with you and could sing praise all day, but I'd say the average casual gamer or YouTube dude is just going to groan, "ohh, another shooting game..."