eSports Overload!

I used to watch every Starcraft 2 event I could possibly watch. Whether it was live or recorded, I’d watch just about everything, at least up until the final 4. If I didn’t care about anyone in the final 4, I’d tend to stop watching at that point, because there was other stuff to get to.

Then WCS hit, and I simply couldn’t watch everything. It was just too much content, considering I liked watching the talk shows and big events. It helps that WCS was horribly done in the North American scene and after I couldn’t watch a few days in a row I was so far behind there was no way to catch up. I stopped caring.

Geoff "iNcontroL" Robinson did a big rant just after WCS launched about how we’re diluting the SC2 scene with events, and how viewers would suffer for it. I thought he was right then….but even with the WCS changes it’s still been bad for SC2 stuff.

Now though, we’ve been watching a ton of Hearthstone, so our SC2 watching has dropped off a bit. We still catch the big tournaments (DreamHack, HomeStory Cup, Lonestar Clash, RedBull events), but there’s no more good talk shows to watch since Chanman left. At least, none that I’ve found that I enjoyed.

I watched a bit of TI because, well, it’s TI and who doesn’t want to watch something called a “newbie stream” when you’ve never played or watched DOTA2?! It was fun! For a bit. But the rest of my keeping up with eSports was through Chanman’s show, Unfiltered. When he stopped doing it, I stopped caring. I haven’t watched Live on 3 in a while though….I think I’ll put that on the watch list. But moving on to the point!

Now that we’re heading into Blizzcon finals for Hearthstone and SC2 in just a few weeks as well as DreamHack Open 2014, and some TakeTV tournaments - there’s even less time for watching stuff, considering it’s football season and my husband is determined to make me play Disc Golf on Saturdays.

Even without watching WCS (ugh!), King of the Hill tournies, random Twitch channels, or any esports shows, I find myself having to choose very carefully what content I have to watch. Let’s not be crazy, I still watch 8bits! But I haven’t even had time to watch Crumps2’s Twitch channel lately! It’s so sad!

I seem to be choosing events to watch based on casters, or favorite players - and when they’re out I tend to stop watching almost immediately.

I see now why folks on Reddit only seem to watch one game, as evidenced by the fact that every community seems *shocked* that some big event did something they’ve never seen before that another game has been doing for years.

There just isn’t enough time to take care of a household, watch everything I want, work, *and* play! Either way, the next 12 weeks will hold a lot of tournaments I’m looking forward too, along with the holiday season - so it’ll be a great time for some hot chocolate while I decorate the house and do laundry...and root for the Bronco’s!