Year: 2015

  • Who benefits? Ember and public player salaries

    Who benefits? Ember and public player salaries

    This is going to be the start of a new series called “Who Benefits.” At its core, the series looks at marketing and PR decisions in eSports in a critical way in order to attempt to decipher choices and why they’re made. The origin of the name comes from a panel in DC Comics’ Identity…

  • Fishing for pre-feedback, and how it hurts your product

    Fishing for pre-feedback, and how it hurts your product

    Today I’d like to start a series of posts where I examine some of my pet peeves when it comes to content creation. These posts will attempt to deconstruct bad habits and common mistakes I see made, as well as provide decent reasoning for thinking them a problem. As a disclaimer: This article is not…

  • Writers, here’s why you should learn Markdown

    Writers, here’s why you should learn Markdown

    As a writer, I’ve become painfully aware that we don’t get many “toys.” Artists have stores devoted to different tools of their trade, while we have… keyboards — maybe some fancy notebooks. Over the past couple years I’ve come to appreciate Markdown as something that makes my writing more efficient and better for the web.…

  • The real winners of The Summit 4: Team OG

    The real winners of The Summit 4: Team OG

    Like many Dota fans, I had the chance to watch The Summit 4 this past week. The Summit, produced by studio Beyond the Summit, tends to be a bit of a gift to the community in the sense that it’s a casual environment for pros to compete with eachother while interacting with the audience through…

  • First impressions: Xenoblade Chronicles X

    First impressions: Xenoblade Chronicles X

    Note: the gfys in this post are bugged due to something on the end of Gfycat. They should display at the proper crop after a loop or two. I’m likely going to be doing a video on this later, but I thought I’d write down a couple thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles X, since I picked…

  • Tutorial: Free telestrator for Open Broadcaster Software

    Tutorial: Free telestrator for Open Broadcaster Software

    One system I’ve definitely wanted to use in analysis is the telestrator, or video marker. For those not familiar with the term, it’s what sportscasters will use to take a free-frame of an instant replay and draw own it. We’ve seen it used by Riot Games and other eSports companies as part of a smart…

  • On the (possibly grim) future of Overwatch

    On the (possibly grim) future of Overwatch

    Blizzard’s FPS title Overwatch is probably one of the most hyped titles this year due to a couple different factors: Vibrant characters give personalities for players to gravitate towards MOBA-like mechanics mean that there are cool things for players to do besides aim and shoot well People saw the success that first movers on Hearthstone…

  • Thoughts on Kero Blaster

    Thoughts on Kero Blaster

    One of the most beloved video games of all time is Cave Story, a labor of love by one Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya. Developed over the course of years, it was initially released for free, and eventually ported to consoles like the Nintendo 3DS and WiiU later. Basically, if someone wants an example of a passion…

  • 50 women in esports: a brief list

    50 women in esports: a brief list

    Sparked by a debate that happened yesterday about female representation and role models in esports/gaming, I decided to compile a list of women in the industry that I enjoy following on Twitter. I’ve included a little blurb about what they do and a follow button beneath all of them. I encourage you to follow them…

  • Thanks, Marcus: a Dyrus obituary

    Thanks, Marcus: a Dyrus obituary

    Some of you know that eSports is something I came into by accident; it was never supposed to be a career, but more a hobby. Marcus helped pull me in. I started playing League of Legends casually in 2010, a little bit before Season 1. Garen has just been released, putting my start date around…