(CW: FPS Violence)
We've spent a lot of time this week discussing esports and the meta language that can surround games. By chance (or maybe not?), this weekend also happens to be the weekend of IEM Chicago, a rather large tournament for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Luckily I was able to attend the tournament yesterday, and I will soon be trekking downtown to catch the finals later today. This is my first time being at a major esports event in person, and it has given me ample time to consider how audiences interact with the meta language surrounding a game, and why CS:GO seems, at least to me, a very accessible game for spectators.
What seems clear to me from watching CS:GO tournaments both online and now in person is that there seem to be two different meta languages that surround the game. I'm going to tentatively call these the "casual" and "hardcore" languages. These two languages are by no means opposed to each other. In fact, I would argue that the "hardcore" language builds off of the "casual" language. However, they do serve completely different functions. I want to look at the "casual" vocabulary needed to understand a moment in counterstrike, and explore how CS:GO esports events try to make themselves more accessible through a "casual" language.
At its core, the gameplay in CS:GO is relatively simple to understand. Each game consists of 30 rounds. There are two teams of five: Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. The Terrorists are trying to plant a bomb in one of two locations. The Counter-Terrorists are trying to stop the bomb from being planted or defuse the bomb if it does get planted. The first team to win 16 rounds wins the game. Players respawn at the start of each round. The players have guns. If they shoot an opposing player enough times, that player will die. That is everything you need to know to watch CS:GO. While the game is deeply complex, these basic concepts aren't too complicated. I think part of what makes this basic literacy possible is that these rules are built off of concepts that we already have: bombs explode and shooting people can kill them. I've found that this helps to make the gameplay intuitive for viewers. Viewers already know what to expect when a player pulls the trigger, well before they've ever seen their first CS:GO game. For example, look at this clip from ESL One Cologne 2015. The player "Pasha" shoots and kills four members of the enemy team. You don't need to know anything else about the CS:GO besides what has been already described to know what's going on. The play might be happening a little fast, but there is no extra information that the viewer needs to understand.
This is the "casual" language of CS:GO in a nutshell, and it seems that CS:GO tournaments do at least make some sort of an effort to appeal to it. For example, the tournament organizers at IEM Chicago handed out bracelets which flash in sync with the ticking bomb (https://streamable.com/0x2zv). Attendees don't need to know the intricacies of the game to recognize what's going on here and have fun. Indeed, I was surprised by just how many of those types of people were in the audience. There were many people there who clearly did not know much about Counter Strike, and were constantly asking questions about the game. I think that simple features like the wrist bands are ways to get those who might not know a lot about the game to engage with it more easily. The tournament also tries to keep this sort of viewership interest on the streaming side of things through the use of shoutcasters. Games always have shoutcasters (this is not unique to CS:GO) whose responsibility is to focus on and hype up those easy-to-understand moments to keep viewers engaged. For example, I would argue that part of what makes the "Pasha" clip entertaining to watch are the shoutcasters' own reactions to what's going on in the game.
CS:GO is not unique in having this focus on making the game accessible to all viewers, but it seems is suited well to doing so. For example, compare CS:GO and the presence of its "casual" language to the knowledge required for watching a MOBA like League of Legends or Dota2. To even have a basic understanding of what's going on in a given moment, the viewer needs to know the abilities of up to ten different champions at a given time. Consider the moment from Dota2 that Thomas Malaby talked about in the chapter we read this week.
Without knowledge of each player's abilities and how they interact with each other, the viewer is lost as to why this play is so amazing. I am no stranger to MOBAs (I've played far to many games of LoL), but I know very little about Dota2 (I've only played a mere 15 hours). As a result I knew very little about what was happening in the clip and was at a loss as to why it was considered the greatest play in Dota2 history. Only through Malaby's explanation was I able to get a limited appreciation for what happened.
Of course CS:GO tournaments do also appeal to the viewer who is fluent in the "hardcore" meta language, just in the same way that "The Play" appeals to a "hardcore" Dota2 viewer. In Counter . Strike, the "hardcore" viewer is the sort of viewer who understands how the money management system works in the game. The sort who knows what the terms "eco" or "force buy" mean. A viewer who knows where "popdog" is on Train, where "squeaky" is on Cache, where "goose" is on Dust II, or where "tetris" is on Inferno. This is the sort of viewer who knows why this (https://clips.twitch.tv/FragileDrabHippoBudStar) B execute on Mirage by Astralis yesterday is so good. Tournaments provide the post-game analysis of strategies and stats that the hardcore viewer would be interested in. But as I've outlined above, I don't think that this sort of knowledge is necessary to appreciate or enjoy a good game of Counter Strike or even a good play (like the "Pasha" video). Based on my experience at IEM Chicago, I think that the tournament organizers seem to recognize that as well.
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