Esports
Battle royale titles present a truckload of challenges when it comes to casting pro games thanks to the sheer scale of each skirmish. Pro caster Simms gives us the lowdown on what exactly goes on.
Battle royale, the genre that pits anywhere up to 100 players against each other in a bid for survival, has exploded in popularity over the past two years. As a result, when it comes to the pro gaming side of things, casting, commentating and analysing a huge event – where there are dozens of teams and literally 100 people to keep an eye on – can get difficult.
Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds itself is one of the leading battle royale esports, and it now has its own set of professional, regional leagues with a roster of proven talent that have come over from other games. It’s worth keeping in mind that a solid percentage of esports – as things stand – are team-based affairs that pits one squad against another. This is incredibly different to PUBG, which typically has 16 teams competing in a single game – all looking for glory.
Moving over to cast a PUBG esports match – or indeed a series of matches – requires a whole other skillset to a game such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or League of Legends. The maps are undeniably larger, teams have their own preferred locations to drop in at, and action can take place at any moment – and anywhere.
Knowledge is key when casting any esport; casters are effectively telling the narratives of each game to the audience and have to translate what’s happening on-screen in a digestible fashion. Now, consider that four or five teams could be battling in a particular area and, while that’s happening, two other teams are set to engage in a fight of their own across the other side of the map. Being able to follow all of this action, accurately explain what’s occurring in these engagements, and keeping track of other fights all at the same time is completely different to standard team-vs-team experiences. Handily, Richard ‘Simms’ Simms gives us his insight into what exactly goes into casting an intense game of PUBG.
“I think for me personally the biggest challenge was moving from being a strict play-by-play caster to a colour caster – in Halo for years I've been a dedicated play-by-play caster who plays off to a dedicated colour,” says Richard ‘Simms’ Simms, a veteran PUBG caster. “PUBG, in my honest opinion, can’t be play-by-play casted – perhaps for some of the latter stages of the game with the heavy action and carnage, sure, but for the whole game? Absolutely not. Another big change is that certain little 'flaws' have shown due to casting regularly (which honestly is great as Reddit has been amazing for feedback), I've been working hard on certain crutch words, pronunciations and extending my vocabulary usage.”
If PUBG is hard to discuss in a play-by-play fashion, then colour casting is the other option. This effectively means providing analysis and background information on the teams, perhaps their preferred drops and what that means in the grand scheme of the game, and strategies that could be employed. This style of casting isn’t new, but yet again, it’s a whole different beast when it comes to PUBG.
“Every tournament organiser has been different, I can’t stress enough how important dedicated observers who move from region to region with region-specific casters for the main global events is,” says Simms. “Your observer is just as important as your co-caster and speaking to the bigger point of the question on 16 teams, the observers need to be pre-empting conflicts, monitoring choke points and responding to what the casters are talking about. We need to build the story of 16 teams on how they dropped at ‘location A’ and lived or died at ‘location B’ and discuss the path they took/obstacles they faced in the way.”
While it has its own unique challenges, even when it comes to observation, PUBG still requires harmony and solid teamwork between those telling the story during a broadcast and those showing the story as it unfolds. It’s hard to imagine that PUBG is at its peak when it comes to broadcasting considering the battle royale genre is still largely new, and considering the fact that additional technology is being developed and employed to make the overall spectating experience even better on a frequent basis.
It’s interesting to note that many of the casters seen in PUBG leagues and major tournaments are often endemic to the scene, with only a few around today who have prior experience in other games. Perhaps it’s because the game’s competitive world is still young, or it’s potentially because it’s frankly just not simple to adapt to its unique demands – or perhaps it’s down to that those who grew with the game, and have been casting it since the start, understand just what exactly needs to be focused on in-game. With PUBG Corp. aiming to make spectating even better in their game, we can only imagine the calibre of casting going up, too.
