There
have been way too many write-ups laced with highly opinionated and
hateful comments, most of which reek of ignorance and personal vendetta
towards IGC. What has always irked me as an eSports journalist is the
fact that we Indian gamers never get our point across via constructive
criticism. We’re either overaggressive and across the fence with our
bayonets out or totally submissive with our school-girlish criticism
behind a hideous mug who wants to govern the world from her armchair.
Let’s face it – India Gaming Carnival could’ve been a huge success if
things would’ve fallen into place. WTF and IGC have openly admitted that
they made their share of mistakes along with a lot of factors that
contributed towards the event going downhill for everyone, including the
organizers. Let’s not forget the fact that they refunded a lot of
tickets and passes on Day 1 itself which was a huge loss to them along
with a bad start.
1. The Venue: The venue was nice with its vast lawn, parking area and overall capacity. However, the most crucial factor which was Power was missing. I have no insight into the deals with vendors but if they backed out on IGC like this, it’s safe to assume they were a bunch of unprofessional people. This again puts the onus on an event organizer to have chosen people with enough experience with power hungry events like ours. In 2008 and 2009, the Pragati Maidan complex hosted the Wills Lifestyle Indian Fashion Week or ‘WIFW’ operated by the Fashion Design Council of India. Every year, this venue also hosts exhibitions of all major companies and products ranging from leather items and clothing to toys, Sports equipments, lifestyle products and services, Medical equipments, Electronics, Job and Book Fairs along with the famous auto-expo. Pragati Maidan is without doubt an iconic place to have an event of this scale as it brings along many advantages of its own as a venue, namely Metro Connectivity, Security and above all – Visibility! We might be oblivious to the complications and procedures in order to book those massive halls in there, but the mismatch between the expectation and outcome raise such questions.
Bottom Line: Logistics constitute 80% of an event or rather, logistics are the event. If logistics fail, the event goes down.
Suggestion: When on a hunt for a venue, leave no stone unturned. We’re an open community so float the question in this open forum and be shameless to ask.
2. Public Relations & Promotions: Advertisements in the Delhi Metro and College Campuses was a great idea. Like I mentioned in one of my other articles, little kids to housewives were being inquisitive about the event and that’s exactly what’s needed to spread the word. In stark contrast however, I recently saw an article in a renowned newspaper on BYOC 2012 that called DotA “Death” of the ancients while it stands for Defense of the Ancients. While the organizers of events cannot be held accountable for this kind of sloppy journalism, they can definitely tighten their hold on who covers the event. A number of gamers are part/full time journalists and can pretty much handle the word-to-mouth publicity along with the power of the written word. The money that was spent on this “half-hearted Press” which had no clue about gaming could’ve been channelized to known gaming coverage websites who would’ve done it for much less money or maybe even free!
The following article for instance was linked on multiple international websites and reflected the wrong dates: http://www.dailypioneer.com/vivacity/53717-gamers-monster-challenge.html
Bottom Line: The promotions were solid, the advertising was good, the posters looked nice.
Suggestion: Involve more gaming websites as official coverage partners apart from doing offline promotions.
3. Ambiguity: Movie- Philadelphia (Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks). Dialogue: “Now, explain it to me like I’m a four-year-old.” A website that serves as a platform of information prior to such an event for millions of eyeballs in the world should not leave anything to the last moment. Assuming that something is obvious is a big mistake. Final list of games, Rules (PDF versions), Registration Procedure, Prices, Updated Prizes, Schedule, Schematic of the venue/Pictures of the venue (outside/inside), SeatMap, FAQs, List of attending teams (international/national) should all be on the website. A perfect example of how to achieve some of the aforementioned objectives would have to be DreamHack’s official website:
http://www.dreamhack.se/dhs12/
Lack of information causes utter chaos and mass hysteria. It also leads to many people simply rushing to your facebook page and asking questions they could not find answers to. While periodic facebook updates are good, they should’ve pointed everyone to the website instead of IGC staff wasting their time in answering redundant questions. Prior to IGC, the information that came out was very hazy. It almost looked like a Question-Answer session where gamers would post things on IGC’s Facebook page and someone from the staff would reply.
Bottom Line: The website could’ve been much fuller in terms of content and clearly laid out information. Remember, your website is your identity. It cannot be incomplete!
Suggestion: Go the extra mile to make sure the reader of your website comes to your facebook page to say “awesome! I’ll be there” instead of asking “what are Fifa 12 rules? Can I bring my controller?”
4. Main Stage, Tournament Area & Layout: A tournament this big is supposed to hype the niche gaming segment in India, to an extent that it looks and feels like something that has never been done before or is simply done better. The tournament area could have been split into two halves. Better yet, given the amount of space at the venue, the main stage could’ve been elsewhere. This could’ve left everyone with tournament area strictly for qualifiers/prelims. The tournament area was not labeled as “TOURNAMENT AREA” and was not barricaded from general public. What this meant was, I could walk into it, unplug a mouse, put it in my pocket and act like nothing happened. Some examples we could learn from:
Bottom Line: There are countless examples in the world to look at and learn from. What’s stopping us?
Suggestion: If an event is to be taken seriously, its layout and spectator friendliness is of utmost importance. A stage, no matter how small it is, is a must and a barricaded and separate tournament area with demarcations for each game (via banners/posters).
5. Hardware: Understanding the needs of each eSports discipline is paramount. 15-inch monitors are not used in any tournament across the world. For first person shooters and RTS games for instance, 24-inch 120Hz LCD monitors are the norm when it comes to tournaments. BenQ’s XL2420T monitors are widely used in most of the gaming tournaments across the world. A decent TN panel monitor like the Dell S2409W does the trick as well. The higher the refresh rate, the better. Gamers have stuck to CRT monitors in the past just for the sake of higher refresh rates. On-board VGA graphics are a crime at a gaming tournament. Each system needs a dedicated graphic card and I guess, it once again boils down to the vendor and the choice of systems. (2 time IEM Champion & QuakeLive player Shane “rapha” Hendrixson @Gamescom with a CRT)
Bottom Line: This is one area that cannot be compromised with. No matter what happens, the hardware should not leave a professional gamer unhappy and prevent him/her from performing to his/her fullest capacity.
Suggestion: This is the core of the tournament so take your time with it.
6. Groups/Brackets: There are many software available online for making brackets. Groups should’ve been drawn as well for each discipline to give the teams a heads-up about their opponents and formulate strategies. This has to happen irrespective of how the event goes, so there’s really no question of hit/miss. They have to be published before the event actually takes place to spice up the competition and have people look forward to that one classic game. A single elimination based tournament could have the following groups drawn in fixtures:
A1 vs. B2
B1 vs. A2
C1 vs. D2
D1 vs. C2
Bottom Line: Can’t run any tournament without these.
Suggestion: Please spend some time in seeding the teams properly so that the top 2 teams in the city/state/country don’t end up playing the first match against each other.
It is pointless to get into the blame game for it ends up being a counterproductive exercise for everyone. Since no other organization has ever stepped forward to get an event of this scale on the road, it is imperative that these observations be shared in open forums for discussions & debates. Finally, I’d like to end this with a request to all the Indian Gamers:
You only have each other. Please get over your petty differences and keep that Volunteer desk somewhat crowded :)
Courtesy --- http://g4menation.com/igc-observations-suggestions/
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