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[Column] General: Free to Play - My Personal Review
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
To avoid any chance of confusion, today's topic isn't the business model. Rather, it's the documentary of the same name that Valve released last week. Available at no charge on Steam and elsewhere, it takes us back to August of 2011 and the first ever e-sports tournament with a top prize of $1 million. Called The International, it took place during Gamescon in Germany, with 16 invited DOTA 2 teams battling it out for a total of $1.6 million.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: Free to Play - My Personal Review.
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Comments
There is a saying that goes, “Write about what you know.” As you can tell from this documentary the film equivalent is “Put any darn thing on film.” I think that what you saw in the film is what they knew about professional gaming. The questions you had, the filmmakers didn’t have the answers. I could possible be wrong, and they didn’t have the time or money to state those facts.
I had a chance to watch this documentary yesterday. I passed on it.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
A good read.
Just like any sports though, we dont what to know what happens after.
If they're smart they've invested their winnings. But since most of them have to pay for their trips and lodgings and food though out the year I'd imagine they're probably spending most of it. And of course those totals are pretax.
So Im not sure they'll ever get "rich" from it. I think their best bet if getting some face-time and picking up a sponsorship.
I use to enter local CS tournaments here in the NW, back in the day. It was about 32-33ish when I really felt my reflexes drop compared to the younger crowd.
I think for twitch esports early to late twenties is prime. Mid-twenties a person tends to play the mind game and be less susceptible to it and tends to still have great reflexes, I know I did.
I'd love to watch it. But the way they try and telecast it makes it unbearable. My hope is they learn from some of these stream-casters so it does become a broadcasted (e)sporting event.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
I haven't followed much of DOTA 2 but answering some of your questions.
Teams were invited based on performance in other tournaments and some PR choices from Valve.
There was no Korean teams because koreans are big in LoL and haven't yet made a splash in DOTA2.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Also a personal opinion / review: I think it was a pretty weak film... it's not even a film per se, more like a merchandising product to promote Valve, DotA (and it's clones with their attempt to build a genre) and the latest boost in e-sporting. Maybe that's why they just put it out for free... I don't really see anyone would watch it in theaters or purchase it on disc, it's more like a 70 minutes long advert
I admit the opening shots are great, Köln is a nice city indeed. Then, right after the intro they just to shoot the movie in the foot with the very first sentence "10 years ago competitve gaming wasn't even really a thing" Riiiight... The strange thing, even if they try to forget the Quake tournaments or Fatal1ty or stuff, this sentence is coming from Valve. CS, 15 years ago, anyone?
To be honest, I don't want to go through the whole product, I ditched my film-junkie self years ago and my english just isn't good enough to a review anyways... I just put here an analogue to shed some light why it was a weak film for me. For it I'd pick from the great many gaming-themed movies and documentaries the King of Kong, because my approach and background fits nicely.
See, I never liked the arcades. I was always into computers, with programming as well beyond gaming, right from the first C64, so sinking a truckload of coins just to play the same -weak- games over and over again, that is just dumb. After I first saw King of Kong, that changed. I mean, I still wouldn't go down to an arcade but I respect Mitchell, Wiebe and the others who devoted themselves to it, and I sometimes fire up an emulator and play some Kong
That is a great movie, about gaming.
I also never liked DotA and its clones. I wouldn't even detail it further because there will be lots of cursing and maybe a ban
After I watched Free to Play (which was a tough thing to do in the first place, the movie is pretty boring) the only thing changed that I don't like those games more deeply, if that's possible 
and in a strange way I feel sorry for the folks in the film. Strange, because Valve's goal clearly was to portrait them as the heroes / protagonists. I guess that's what you get when you don't do a movie, just recording some gaming, and add some interviews inbetween. That's not a movie about gaming, just a video footage for marketing purposes.
That was the smart thing to do. I wish I would've done the same...
I have a bit of a different perspective. First off, I question whether the OP even watched the whole movie. I mean the answers to the questions you have are right in the movie!!
You are right that they only briefly mention e-Sports' status in Korea and China, but you downplay that time, also. Basically, they say that in Korea and China, if you are on a good e-Sports team, you're a celebrity! e-Sports == Celebrity in these countries. They also tell about how the best e-Sports players were brought into the Korean Soccer (Football) team's locker room before their world cup (before something, I don't remember exactly) because they felt it would inspire them to meet THEIR HEROES!!! How about how in these countries they have gaming houses? Where you just grow up and game with your team? How about how the Chinese Government recognizes e-Sports as an ACTUAL sport? How about the part of the foreign e-Sport kid who was followed all over by locals because they recognized him, so they were shooting videos of him, etc.? What about their assertion that in China if you're a girl, you want your boyfriend to be a gamer. I don't really know that any additional gravity is required.
As far as the selection process, it was my understanding that these teams were "The best". You are right, though, they never really say why. For those unfamiliar with MOBA in general, myself included, could be lost. Maybe a ladder? Internal ranking system?
As far as painting a picture of realism goes, I would disagree. Each of these 3 people that are highlighted are at the top of their game, yet they don't have the uber gaming systems you'd expect. They don't have tons of money. They actually play into the exact stereotypes of why your parents don't want you playing games. You've got a kid failing out of school, and another without any sort of life outside the game at all. My impression of their intended message is that this isn't a career. It's a time-boxed, limited-time offer and if you're not the best, you might as well move on because you'll never make a career out of it. Even with a $1,000,000 prize, you've got like 6? 7? 8? people on your team (5 players, a coach, and maybe a sub?), so your actual take-away pay isn't that great. It's even worse if you finish anything other than that. I mean I think that second place was like $200k? Even the most recent tournament had a prize pool of just under 3 million. So that's not too bad! It's a healthy market, but anyone can play it and you need to dedicate serious time (10 hours a day?) to be any good. They even did this following the 2 knockouts of the main "protaganists", which is where you see the let down and the realization that they need to turn their life around and maybe start doing something else.
What about my review? Well, Michael Bay fans probably won't be that impressed, the biggest explosion is some fireworks and lights, oh and someone smoking a cigarette. Also, no lens flare for you JJ Abrahms fans. Oh! Also, it's a DOCUMENTARY! If you watched King of Kong and like it, you'll probably like this. For people who are interested in gaming, it's an interesting perspective about competitive gaming and where we're headed (by we, I mean collective we, I'm definitely not going to be gaming competitively). The movie is aimed at those who are going to open their steam account and download DOTA 2 after watching the movie and try to play it successfully (present company included). It doesn't really do a good job of identifying with people outside the gaming community, though. We never really look deep into the souls of any of the competitors (although they definitely try at times). There definitely could have been an additional 15 minutes with some more substance. I sometimes felt like the movie was aimed at a younger, ADD audience. Although plots seemingly developed, it failed to really capitalize on those climactic moments, even when a final team wins. I would liken it to Ben Stein saying "Hooray. We just won a million dollars." It's certainly not the worst movie I've ever seen. Plus, they did keep it under 90 minutes, so you've got to respect that. Nothing I hate more than having a movie like Wyatt Earp steal like 3 hours of my time and not even wipe up after it's done. If nothing else, I think that it should give a level of respect to those who do play competitively, both because of their skills, but also their dedication (stupid or not). If you're still not convinced, though, just download the game and see how well you do with that.
Crazkanuk
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I am an old "eSports veteran", even having worked in the industry surrounding it, so here goes my take:
The production value is really good and the "documentary", if you want to call it that, strikes a nice balance between eSport-centric "nerd content" and showing the people involved as kind of normal human beings, including their families and their lives outside of the competetive gaming scene. Overall an entertaining endeavor if you are intrested in the topic.
What really bothered me was the fact that it is unfortunately more of a PR-film for Valve/Dota than anything else. I have no problem if you focus your documentary mainly on one tournament, especially one with such a big prize purse, but it acted as if nothing else had happened before.
There have been huge online and LAN-tournaments all over the world since 2000 in games like StarCraft (Broodwar), Quake, CounterStrike 1.x, Warcraft 3 and so on, also with huge crowds in attendance. The prize purses there might not have broken the 1 million dollar mark for one tournament, but there were millions of dollars in prize money every year. We have professional gamers making a living off of gaming (and organizations running their teams and the leagues) for a decade now - people earning six-digits per year are nothing new.
And there are a lot of players making a very decent living for someone still in school or university, even if tehy "only" earn in the area of $8,000-$20,000 range per year.
And all these games didn´t need the publisher to provide the funds and the marketing like Valve did with Dota, they developed communities and attracted high-level sponsors on their own. Sure, i don´t expect Valve to advertise their competitors, but its not okay for a "documentary" to just straight out lie.
But even within the context of the documentary I often cringed because of some statements. A team winning $250,000, which equals $50,000 per player was supposed to be a letdown? One tournament, when there are several per year? And pay-checks from the team? And money from streaming? That was just not believable, it felt forced to fit the dramatic arc of the whole film.
If someone is interested at a look at a non-player in eSports, here is a real and very good documentary about commentator/host "Sjokz": https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152863277509625
"I wanted it to be like <xxxx>!!!"
The cardinal sin for a reviewer...
I have to say that I'm surprised at the dismissive and, (IMO,) overly-harsh reviews of this film. I watched it about a week ago and found it very iteresting, and after reading this article and the few comments so far it seems that I am probably in the minority so far. I think that this film struck a good balance of 'just informative enough' because Idon't think that the gaming community was the only audience that they are looking to pull in - hell, I don't even think the gaming community was truly the primary audience. I think that the primary demographic are people like me, (aware of 'eSports' but not diehard fan looking for an in-depth rundown of strats n' stats.)
Having the families of the players included and their perspectives on pro-gaming is what provides the point of relatability for the non-gaming community, and if there's even a modicum of curiosity about 'eSports' or 'Professional Gaming' from the viewing audience it likely comes from the non-gamers depicted in the film being more relatable than the featured gamers, and even the smallest efforts to bridge the gap between the gamer and the non-gamer will go a long way.
The film wasn't as in-depth game-wise as some would have liked, but that doesn't seem to be the film they set out to make in the first place. The film is about the pioneers of the professional gaming world, and how they, and their families, and thier lives are affected by throwing themselves into something that no one knows how it will all work out. Once your reflexes begin to slip what does a former pro-gamer have for career options? In traditional physical sports a player may become a coach, could something like that happen within eSports? Will eSports be able to draw a mainstream audience with the games that are out now? Will they ever in the future? Are the only spectators other people who play the game?
These are the questions that the film posed, IMO, and the film made no qualms about saying 'We don't know the answers.', and I'm OK with that because the film accomplished thought provocation at all and that is a rare thing in films.
TL;DR = The film is a good 'introduction' to the concept of pro-gaming. It's still in it's infancy so no one is sure how it will play out in the end. This is not a film for the hardcore gaming community - it is a film for casual and non-gamers about the hardcore gaming community. It's worth a watch, so long as you maintain that perspective.
Actually I wrote my post from a movie-viewer point of view, and I stick to my previous point: as a docu, this film is simply not working. True, docu is a tough genre. So I'm fairly certain that for non-gamers it could be an even more boring experience.
And to be honest, if I watch it as a gamer, the case is much worse... I touched that part as well, but Iluwen above summarised it much shorter and better: "Sure, i don´t expect Valve to advertise their competitors, but its not okay for a "documentary" to just straight out lie."
Khm... that's exactly the point, they're no pioneers in anything, and pro-gaming is way over its infancy... If we don't count the arcade and console tournaments, just the "regular" pc ones, it's still started in the '90s. At the late '90s even CPL was already formed, for f.'s sake... and of course Valve knows it well, since their own CS was one of the standard games on WCG tournaments of that times. But it wouldn't fit their marketing ad (this movie), so they "conveniently" forgot about it, just to form the picture you also detailed above in your post, with "e-sport is the new fad, there are folks who want to earn their living from it, wow, how cool is that, jumping into the unknown, lots of money, etc." Yep, it's a nice picture, but a fake one.
And for the no one is sure how it will play out in the end part, of course we do, there are decades worth of examples... Some of them will make it, and for lots of them it will remain just a great part of their lives. Mitchell became a legend for example, Fatal1ty built his own trademark (I even had a mouse+keyboard combo once
), FragDolls grown into a world wide team - or if sticking to the girls, PMS is also a known team now and they started 10 years ago, when (according to this movie) competitve gaming wasn't even really a thing. Lol. Heck, I only watched this Valve ad campaign because of Tammy, she's great. (and this comes from someone who loathe SC2, and DotA too. Still, Tammy rocks 
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