This is an interesting study of Long Tail (of which I'm still rewriting my post). As the internet allows a huge number of consumers access to an unlimited variety of content, we start to see an increase of mainstream-quality productions. One of these is a sporting event called EVE TV.
This is history in the making, really. Basically, a computer game exists called EVE Online, a spaceship MMORPG in which players create corporations that rule star systems, and it's developers, Crowd Control Productions, is hosting a large tournament. In this tournament, players gather groups of ships and go to war with each other in teams (based on their alliance of corporations). It's basically like the World Cup, teams competing to win in a large tournament bracket over a series of days. Each corporation wields a team of five ships and fights another team of five ships inside a special arena in the game. Each ship is piloted by a player.
Here's where it gets interesting. CCP has decided to broadcast the entire tournament in full 640x480 streaming video. What really makes this amazing is the quality they've done. DJs and commentators from a fan created and ran radio station called Eve Radio has been brought in by the developers to provide play-by-play commentary during the fights. You are watching the space fights between these ships while production-controlled cameras (a spectator-mode camera) provide viewpoints. The play-by-play commentators offer amazing, professional commentary in excellent DJ-voices.
It sounds like something you'd easily hear while watching a football or baseball match on ESPN. The commentators, offering tactical advices and quips in their British-accented voices, sound like they've done this for a career all their lives. When a match is over, they even go back to a full professional studio where pre- and post-match analysis is granted by more commentators from EVE Radio, monitored by a professional presenter. Here they present favorites, offer their opinions and takes on what exactly happened during the fight and what will happen during the next. They also take questions emailed in by viewers. Interspersed between all these is short production clips, little pre-recording interviews with developers or experts at strategy in the game.
Overall, it's the highest quality broadcast of a virtual sporting event ever. This is the ESPN of the internet era, providing quality on what could be constituted as a niche market in a classic example of Long Tail economics. However, this "niche" market is sizable, with over 3000 viewers the first day of the tournament. What is even more impressive is that all this quality, high-production broadcast is hinging on something amateur and extremely unpredictable.
These aren't professional gamers, these are guys who are signing on to a game in their free-time to compete in a hobby they enjoy. If, for some reason, players don't sign on or have problems with internet connections, a match is dropped. Instead of just having dead air, the production engineers simply drop in another pre-made clip while the next team is organized and readied. I highly recommend simply watching a few minutes to see the quality going into this. In this "geek" hobby world, it feels like you are watching a culture of professionals. These are like Badass Zidanes out there, headbutting the hell out of everyone. Today's broadcast is just ending and viewer peak for this broadcast is around 5,500. Keep in mind, this is for a single sporting event, of a single video game.
It's fascinating to watch the internet revolutionize our culture, including what we watch and what we consider entertainment. This isn't the domain of the geek or nerd any longer.
Rock on,
- Maddog
some times i'm too high to play dnd
