but trying to follow 12 different heroes in a FPS
popping a cluster of giant ult animations is impossible.
I (very casually) played a lot of FPS back in the day: Quake 1/2/3, Tribes 1/2, TF2, etc.
I watched some Overwatch matches on TV and found it... extremely hard to follow.
1. Watching other people play from a first-person perspective is rough. They need to figure out better camera angles or something. I don't know the exact answer there. Also needed, perhaps, replays of key moments? Even more so than traditional sports, esports is so "blink and you missed it"
2. I've never played Overwatch specifically, so I didn't know the maps at all. The broadcasts really need to address this somehow unless they only want to appeal to people that already know the maps. Give me some kind of.... map overlay so I know where the heck the action is happening, relative to the goals on the map.
3. The announcers were unlistenable. They just sounded like fans. "OH!!!!!! GAMERDUDE123 WITH THE KILL!!!!! OOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!" Broadcasting traditional sports is extremely hard, and esports doubly so, so I realize how difficult a task it is. But my god. Unlistenable.
This was a few years ao, maybe it's better now. But it was basically a nightmare to me.
I watched OW as well. I attended the first two championship matches as well.
1. I never had an issue keeping up. I would have loved more perspectives (the Twitch option had multiple ways to watch) and I think if they'd kept up with that, it would have been even better, but the default view was pretty solid.
2. Map/Objectives overviews were frequently done, especially in the early days. In fact, it was almost a joke "Of course we know how it's played!"
3. I'm sorry, but I can't believe you were watching the same streams. They were clear with the callouts of events happening and what was going on. For a game that is so fast-paced, they did an excellent job of keeping you aware of what was happening. Suggesting that was just "OOOHHH!!! Feed kill! OHHHH!" is not accurate in the slightest.
I think the issue might be this: " watched some Overwatch matches on TV "
I never watched the matches on TV. I always watched it via Twitch or YouTube. Maybe the TV matches were highly edited in some way that didn't translate well. I don't know. What I do know is that what you describe and what I saw were completely different.
Yeah, this was some... Overwatch league thing on the local sports channel on cable. I admit that I didn't spend a ton of time watching it. Just a few minutes here and there, whenever I saw it on.
It definitely sounds like it was quite different from what you were watching.
Maybe it was just me, I don't know. I will certainly say that broadcasting esports just seems insanely hard.
I think you bring fair criticisms but it's a tough thing to cater a broadcast to audiences that may not have any idea what the game is even about and also an audience that knows the game intimately.
Football (both american and european) and baseball show well I think because the game is on the surface simple. People are also usually exposed to it during school. The rules can get complex and rare rules (please do not do a balk) sometimes involve game downtime and the broadcast can use the opportunity to show replays and explain rules.
Video games have a harder time of this just due to the media. I know a lot about Overwatch, but when I watch LoL broadcasts they're similarly unwatchable, I have no idea what's going on.
Good points. Traditional sports have so many breaks in the action and these are the places where (good) commentators can explain what's going on, replays can be shown, etc.
I don't know how you could do with with something that is as non-stop as videogaming.
To really make things comprehensible you'd almost have to... give up the idea of a strictly "live" broadcast. Broadcast it on a short delay so there could be an opportunity for some exposition while the action is "paused."
It would be tough to find the right balance between hardcore-friendly and noob-friendly. But I'm sure it could be done. After all, traditional sports have found this balance.
I watched some Overwatch matches on TV and found it... extremely hard to follow.
1. Watching other people play from a first-person perspective is rough. They need to figure out better camera angles or something. I don't know the exact answer there. Also needed, perhaps, replays of key moments? Even more so than traditional sports, esports is so "blink and you missed it"
2. I've never played Overwatch specifically, so I didn't know the maps at all. The broadcasts really need to address this somehow unless they only want to appeal to people that already know the maps. Give me some kind of.... map overlay so I know where the heck the action is happening, relative to the goals on the map.
3. The announcers were unlistenable. They just sounded like fans. "OH!!!!!! GAMERDUDE123 WITH THE KILL!!!!! OOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!" Broadcasting traditional sports is extremely hard, and esports doubly so, so I realize how difficult a task it is. But my god. Unlistenable.
This was a few years ao, maybe it's better now. But it was basically a nightmare to me.