Hierophant
Banned
I got one of his mouse pads at a hearthstone tournament and it was actually pretty good so there's my exposure to him
Why did PA not want him at PAX?
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LoL Pro Faker Signs Up For Twitch, Immediately Breaks Record (245k concurrent)
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
- Start date
Why did PA not want him at PAX?
ChrisMahoney
Banned
I don't follow LCS. I'm sure I'd know who Faker was if I did. I'm just saying that in the real world, esports is niche (but still growing)
Sure it'd be weird for a different medium but gaming is a HUGE area. Just because someone is an enthuastist about video games doesn't mean they should know that much about current popular games. Hell, ask me to name a level or character of the latest COD and I'll look at you with a blank expression. On the other hand, show me the icons of Quake 3 Maps and I'll tell your their needlessly obtuse names.
I do agree that people that act proud for not knowing the person are weird though lol.
ChrisMahoney
Banned
E for All expo made a big announcement that Fatal1ty was attending and you could get his autograph. Penny arcade jokingly responded with his ban from Penny Arcade
How is esports niche? Please give me some reasons other than
1. Nobody I knows talks about
2. I don't know about it
3. Lot of people in this thread don't know about it
I will wait :3
Tangled Up in Blue
Banned
It's kind of like going to a sports forum and people either acting like they've never even heard of the World Cup or just mocking you for watching a "niche" sport like soccer.
It's bizarre.
who?
Hierophant
Banned
that mouse pad is still the best I've ever owned
it was either the fatality mouse pad or a hearthstone mug
Tbh I was going for a hearthstone cushion
I don't think anyone is pretending not to know this person though and I don't think I've seen anyone outright mocking others for liking him or League of Legends.
imagine if RTZ had won 2 TIs by now
SargerusBR
I love Pokken!
He's going to do some mad cash
JeTmAn81
Member
It's definitely an old dude thing. For most people it takes some time to realize how pointless it is forcing yourself to pay attention to current culture. You can just pick and choose what interests you, and MOBA's are not in that list for me.
Right, but the difference is that this is a general gaming forum and not a esports forum. If it was the latter you'd have a point.
chillybright
Banned
No wonder.
Depending on where you live every "real" sport is also an niche in the real world.
Son of a Witch
Member
But how can I pretend I'm cool for being out of touch with what's mainstream then?
🙏 amen. They just look silly otherwise
Stone Ocean
Member
Because not knowing who he is and making no effort to figure it out is a sign that you are cool unlike the people that know him.
Nothing personnel kid who.gif
btw i didn't get to watch much of the stream, did he get the early issues sorted out?
did he talk in english ?
just ignore em like you would any other shitposter
did he talk in english ?
they don't care, they just came to this thread to rip this kind of response out of you
just ignore em like you would any other shitposter
Tangled Up in Blue
Banned
There have been several posts basically saying that LoL is a niche game and implying that you're a weirdo for being into it. Again, this is a very warped perspective considering that League is arguably the most popular video game on the planet right now.
People defending their right to ask 'who?' in a thread explicitly about something the thread immediately explains and gains nothing from their proud insistence on not doing so should try asking 'what?' when someone posts a thread about a financial milestone for Dark Souls or something.
Tangled Up in Blue
Banned
Esports is HUGE in the general gaming world and League rules the esports roost. Again, it's fine if you're hanging out on a general sports forum and you don't personally care for soccer, but if you come into a thread about Messi and say, "Who?", you're going to get side eye.
The same concept applies here.
Hierophant
Banned
Who is this dark soul? Is he the main character
Tangled Up in Blue
Banned
I think it has something to do with that Dark City movie from years ago. Whatever, it's not like anyone plays it anyway.
It is not even that. Faker and lol was clearly explained in the first post.
Either people read the title and came to shitpost or they read it and still asking who anyway to troll.
I understand if people don't know who he is but lord guys isn't it thing to read the op before posting in a thread?
AdventureRacing
Member
Crazy numbers. I feel it wasn't that long ago that I found it super impressive if a tournament final for any esport reached those numbers.
I don't think the comparison works. Soccer is basically huge everywhere and whether your interested in sport or not there is a good chance you've seen Messi. Whether it be in a news update, advertisement or plane safety video Messi is everywhere. So you don't even need a passing interest to know who he is.
Also sports are all about watching the game. In gaming not everyone who has an interest in games has an interest in esports. Lots of people just play games and have never watched one. Neogaf is a gaming forum but you rarely read anything in esports unless you seek it out.
That plus most people tend not to stray as much from their game of choice. I feel with esports people are more likely to stick with the game they know and like and not see or hear much about any others.
I have a passing interest in esports (mainly SC2) and I read GAF a lot but I wasn't sure who faker was. I'd heard the name and vaguely recognised it but that's about it. Whereas I have no interest in soccer and it's not that big where I live yet I've definitely heard of Messi.
Edit: not defending the 'who?' Comments. It's made clear in the OP and only takes a second to research it.
I don't think the comparison works. Soccer is basically huge everywhere and whether your interested in sport or not there is a good chance you've seen Messi. Whether it be in a news update, advertisement or plane safety video Messi is everywhere. So you don't even need a passing interest to know who he is.
Also sports are all about watching the game. In gaming not everyone who has an interest in games has an interest in esports. Lots of people just play games and have never watched one. Neogaf is a gaming forum but you rarely read anything in esports unless you seek it out.
That plus most people tend not to stray as much from their game of choice. I feel with esports people are more likely to stick with the game they know and like and not see or hear much about any others.
I have a passing interest in esports (mainly SC2) and I read GAF a lot but I wasn't sure who faker was. I'd heard the name and vaguely recognised it but that's about it. Whereas I have no interest in soccer and it's not that big where I live yet I've definitely heard of Messi.
Edit: not defending the 'who?' Comments. It's made clear in the OP and only takes a second to research it.
The OP isn't very long and that's a pretty generous description of some of the posts here.
That said, the people acting shocked that someone wouldn't know who Faker is are probably going a bit too far. It's not that farfetched
Basically you all suck and are wrong
I think this is a good explanation, I think it has to do with the understandability of the game.
Like most of the people in the world knows soccer, basketball because the rules are easily understandable, the team with more points wins, and they win by scoring goals.
Chess, you win by eating the enemy's pieces until you manage to kill the king.
In contrast, MOBA, you attack towers, you kill heroes, you level up but ultimately the winning objective is actually you just have to destroy this building. Without knowing the complex rules of the game, you have no idea who is winning.
So long you have never touched MOBAs, which is a lot of people, you have no idea what is happening while watching a game.
Ritzboof
Member
its an easy way to riff on league, like how i would say games like LoL are so popular because theyre easy to understand
I disagree, I think Sports and gaming in general are too different for the concept to be the same.
Someone could be really into games, and not follow the esports scene at all. For example, I spend at least 1 hour on GAF every day and I haven't ever heard of Faker until today (And I'm an ex-LoL player too). However, had I gone into the LoL OT, I would have found out about him in less than 5 minutes. That's the difference between the bubble of gaming in general and a specific game.
Gaming is just too vast to assume someone would know about a really really good player of an extremely popular game that they give zero attention to.
It doesn't matter how many people follow MOBA's, especially when in the case of LoL, the numbers are hugely inflated by Korean and Chinese viewers.
I think the better comparison is Soccer = Messi and Games = Miyamoto.
If someone doesn't know who Miyamoto is, and they are in a general gaming forum, then yeah, that'd be weird.
This though, definitely no excuse.
I'm sure a lot of younger generation gamers have no idea who Miyamoto is.
The issue I see here is that GAF was a general gaming forum... in like 2004-2008. But it hasn't regularly updated its definition of "general", which is almost a decade out of date, while gaming as a whole has moved far beyond caring about what Nintendo is doing or who Miyamoto is. GAF is now firmly in the realm of enthusiast, hell, GAF was enthusiast when IGN forums were still a thing.
Maximus.
Member
As someone who had no idea who Faker was and also clicked because I couldn't decipher the the thread title and wanted to know more, it's annoying as hell.
I was able to read the OP and use context clues to form a pretty solid understanding of who Faker is and the fact that his first stream broke a record is impressive and a pretty big deal.
I never felt the need to immediately hit the reply button and post "Uhhh who?!"
It's funny, because the general consensus among both esports fans and mainstream (think NYT, ESPN, USA Today, etc) coverage tends to be that MOBAs are successful partially because of how immediately obvious they are - the viewer can take in the entire match at once, all presented in a manner similar to football complete with a visible line of scrimmage, unlike a fighter where one snap combo can be boxing's sucker punch or FPSes where most of the action can take place behind the spectator's back.
My personal angle, I've had unprompted conversations with gas station attendants in upstate NY re: "did you see the play Faker made last night". I won't deny he probably has MORE cultural currency in Seoul or around 32nd and 5th but he's not unheard of even in the middle of nowhere.
Weltall Zero
Member
Playing for the Barcelona.
It's both, with GAF being nicher but eSports still niche in the grand scheme of things. If people really think more people are exposed to eSports compared to basketball or football, they simply have an acute case of fan myopia and probably don't know a lot of people outside the gaming / internet circle.
There are a ton of people who hardly ever use computers or internet (more so now with the advent of smartphones and instant messaging that makes a lot of people skip even email). If all your metrics about what people know and don't know are based on people you know online, your statistics are hopelessly biased.
Well yes Quonny that's my point, there was a thread about surveying GAF members' ages and the resulting average was around 32.
Weltall Zero
Member
NeoGAF is really a very small part of gaming, but this is pretty much by design due to the harsh registration process and ease of permabans. I don't really think this makes it a "bubble", in the sense that it's a reasonably representative sample of gaming in general, probably with an enthusiast / dedicated gamer slant simply due to effort of access. League of Legends is hardly underrepresented, with 12 OTs (over 200k posts, which again for GAF is rather impressive) and several threads for different events.
My understanding of "bubble" is a community that is unaware of, and doesn't interact with, the larger world. In this sense, as a gaming community, GAF tends to be a bubble with respect to the rest of the "real world", but not with gaming. Being surprised at someone not knowing who the top LoL player is, in my opinion, demonstrates "being in a bubble" more on the surprised part than on the ignorant part.
I do admit it's really impressive to attrack that kind of viewership numbers, regardless of any comparison, which goes to show how incredibly popular LoL.
Well, it is underrepresented compared to say the Dota community. From what numbers I recall seeing, League has around 10 times the number of active monthly users as Dota yet you would probably see quite a bit more Dota players than League players on GAF.