Thursday, October 11, 2012

AngryTestie vs MoonMeander: The Right to Cast Games

Really?

I've gotten a few requests already to talk about this situation. To make things a little easier to understand, though if you're here you probably already know the situation, I am gonna steal some posts from the forums.

Here is the Original Post by author TheMikey:

"Testie objected to Moon casting The Returners vs Gary Johnson 2012 matchup tonight for destination dreamhack. Is it just me or does everyone think the players should have little to no say in it. If the tournament admins deem it fit, any player should be allowed to cast. The majority of the viewers want to see this matchup and HonCast is covering a different match today, which is understandable. But why does testie have the right to veto someone else casting their match. Esports should be targeted more towards the viewers and less to whims of little punks like Testie."

This is followed by a mish-mash of posts either support, defending or questioning the situation.

Here is an except from the DreamHoN: Destination Dreamhack Official Rules:

3.1. Restrictions
a) Observer/Spectator Restrictions
If a person that is not a Player of either Team that competes in a Match, or is not part of a broadcasting organization, such person is required to ask permission of an Admin to spectate a Match. During matches spectators are expected to conduct themselves professionally, and use ALL chat only if it's needed.


5.4. Streaming
Players may only stream their matches from a first person perspective if a six minute delay is put into place. Covering the minimap or other workarounds are not an acceptable substitute for delay software.
  


So really, there isn't a whole lot to support organizations or casters who aren't Honcast via the rules. 

Personally, I can understand why Testie didn't want to let Moon cast his games. Historically the guy has had nothing nice to say about him and has been borderline confrontational with him. I can probably count the number of times I watch Moon try to snipe out Testie while in the lower brackets just because that's the kind of guy Moon is. I don't have a problem with it, and find it all very entertaining, but I can understand why Testie might.

What people seem to be misunderstanding here is that it's not a "right or wrong" decision by Testie, it's simply preferential. Moon has no right to stream any matches, and via the Rules, technically Testie doesn't really have the right to allow him to anyway. All that is mentioned in the rules is that non-broadcasting organizations, which by the way is a direct reference to Honcast, persons who are in the game must have an Administrators permission; and that players may streaming their matches from a first person perspective. 

So basically what we have here is the public opinion on whether or not Testie is an asshole for refusing to let Moon stream his game. This is where the best posts on the forums come from, because they will do whatever it takes and use whatever "facts" they have to support their argument. Like this gem:

"you are totally mistaken. out of the 5k viewers Honcast gets on a regular Dreamhack Destination, Im pretty sure more than 50% people want to watch this match casted from a spectator point. They dont care if its Moon, Zyori, etc. moon trashtalks, yes, but he also casts, and his casts are more or less relevant. i just find is absurd that testie blocks this cast. does he block it if it was someone else and not moon.

why does testie care about what moon says. why do viewers have to suffer because of testie's insecurity. noone cares about the trashtalking, all the viewers want is to watch the match, and now they cannot."


Is there any empirical proof that 50% of the viewers on Honcast wanted to watch The Returners vs Gary Johnson 2012? Frankly, I knew the match was gonna be a 2-0 sweep in favor of GJ 2012 for reasons stated below, and thus had extremely little interest in watching the matches. The series between Bunker Down and Pikachu has a much better history behind it and ended up providing literally HOURS of entertainment. The poster then goes on to question whether or not Testie would have blocked another caster from casting the match. Does it really matter? No. If you want to watch the match, wait till it's over and download the replay. It's that simple.

The rest of the post devolves into people calling each other fanboys. If you support Testie's decision, then you are a Testie fanboy. If you disagree, then you are a Moon fanboy. In nearly 100 posts, absolutely nothing was said. And of course, people are expecting Testie to come on the forums and "explain himself"

Here's the bottom line on this one:

WHO CARES?

Honestly, who gives a single shit about whether Testie let Moon cast one series on one day of one tournament? If this post wasn't on the forums right now, this would have all been forgotten by 3pm today when Honcast is casting Gary Johnson 2012 beat Team Kierk 2-0 in two 15 minute concedes.

It's sad that the post could have ended at post #10 when Fairlight posted the following: 

"In other words, the world should revolve around what you want. No.

If players do not want to have their matches broadcasted by an individual, they have every right in the world to tell that individual to gtfo; that does not change just because you want to see the match. Go download the replay if it means that much to you."




17 comments:

  1. Guess il be the first

    NOTHING TO SEE HERE, JUST A GARBAGE DICKPUB BALL SUCKING HIS OWN BUTTFART IN THE BASE.

    this "blog" is almost as awfull as peter trash dam thats sad son........

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    Replies
    1. Oh. My. God.

      Burned.

      Delete
    2. whoa I think you mistyped "dotallyrad" into your browse op.

      Delete
  2. I can only agree with you Phil, if Testie doesn't want Moon to cast his game, he have every right to veto it down.
    Additionally, who wouldn't suspect Moon to start somehow downtalking Testie while casting the game? Putting myself in Testies position, I wouldn't give Moon the chance to trashtalk me while everyone is directly watching my mistakes.

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  3. Great blog Phil!
    Best of luck with this project, will be following!

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  4. Big initiativ Phil! Enjoying the juicy gossip and looking forward to be reading this alot!

    Starred in chrome, HOLLAH!

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  5. Typical fucking badtrash nerdclown

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  6. cool blog phil, love that you're passionate about HoN even after what happened with S2

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  7. Yea.. Moon would surely harass Testie if he casted that game.. I would never expect a serious cast from Moon.. and all these fanboys crying over a match should just download the replay rather than expecting a trollish natured cast which can only be done by Moon..

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  8. Where is the proof of Testie writing "Moon you cant cast it"
    All i heard was Zfreek and swindle saying "Testie said moon cant cast coz he will ghost". I never seen proof of that anywhere.

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  9. Good read phil, what about the argument: E-sports are for the fans. Wouldn't this be like a pro sports team, let's say the Knicks not wanting their fans to see this? You know the real reason Testie can even begin to play this dreamhack game? The fans.

    Yes, he probably would've said yes to any other caster, but publicity for HON is good pub, regardless of who's doing the casting.

    What are your thoughts into S2 stepping in and making a ruling for the sake of promoting games?

    Thanks!

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  12. Well as you said you self, moon had to ask the Admins if he is allowed to stream, if he had asked them he would have know that testie can't denie it from him. But apparently he didn't, so it was alright by testie to tell him that he is not allowed to, because he wasn't.

    But yeah it would be great if we got to view a lot more matches, but to be honest you shouldn't allow people like moon to stream them, because some players would know that they will get trash talked by him as he does always.

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  13. The few times I've seen Moon cast, he's offered an impartial, albeit critical, analysis of the game's progression, which makes it interesting to watch . While he and Testie may have a history, recently he's been respectful to him when streaming. Testie's reacted always with cold indifference.
    But that's not even the issue. They're competitors now that Testie's back in that scene. Should the competition be allowed to cast againt the player's wishes? Moon would be essentially be making money for analyzing the opposition's strats, lineups, and playstyles. If Testie, in this case, wanted to make Moon do that on his own time, the Admins should respect that.

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  14. dota heroes are pretty broken as shit too when they're first implemented into a public build.

    the difference was that they got added to the tournament pool a lot later.

    since hon has a separate mode for tournament players now this shouldn't become an issue anymore, right?

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  15. After reading the first post, i have to admit that I'm missing the DRD Insult Generator here, Phil.

    It was a good read though, and i felt exactly the same while reading throught the thread.

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