StarCraft II producer wants to take the “elitism” out of eSports
By Alice Lynton on November 17, 2012 at 10:56 am
For those in the know, the eSports scene is an exciting, thriving entertainment source; for those on the outside, it’s an inaccessible, trash-talking mess. StarCraft II producer Chris Sigaty told Forbes that eSports needs two changes to go mainstream – it needs to be on TV, and it needs to be less snobby.
“Assuming we get eSports onto other media formats, specifically TV, and raise its awareness, I can see it growing exponentially. I can see shows being made about eSports like you see with UFC,” he said.
The Blizzard staffer said once people get their minds around the level of skill involved in eSports games, its popularity as a spectator experience will increase – but only if the community loosens up a little.
“There’s a lot of elitism in eSports – it’s like I discovered the new band first. There’s still a force where some people want eSports to feel like it’s their thing,” he said.
“The best way to break out is continuing to make people want to share eSports and make the game easier to describe when it’s on Barcraft or if it was on TV and you find it by flipping through the channels. If we can spend some time getting on TV, it would help.”
Source: Forbes
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interesting comment. I would say the larger problem is with the general public seeing it as childish or pointless. I don’t think I’ve seen many people in the SC2 community be against larger community awareness, on the contrary some of the people involved in SC2 are some of the most dedicated people I know of when it comes to raising awareness.
Heart of the swarm feels alot more accessible than Wing of liberty did, so blizzard is defiantly headed that direction i think
With how badly they ruffled the feathers of the existing esports scene with sc2, they really did need to target a whole new audience to get esports using sc2 in general to increase in size
The SC1 ‘pros’ outright demanding that Blizzard limit the number of units you could select at once from a cr@ppy and outdated UI because it somehow equated to skill is elitism at its finest. The public seeing gaming as childish and pointless doesn’t help the eSports scene but you underestimate how much elitism contributes to this view.
I’m not sure the general public are aware enough about “esports” for elitism to be a factor at all, every single non-gamer (and quite a few gamers) i know are more likely to hear the word “esport” and just start laughing.