Who we are, and who we want to be
Robert Paul, Blizzard Entertainment
This summer, just like every summer, my family made a trip out to Nanchang, China, to see my maternal grandparents. For those of you who have never been to Nanchang in the summer (and I suspect that is nearly every person reading this), I should note that the city’s weather is the main reason I enjoy going back there every year. And by that I mean it’s always so blisteringly hot that we rarely go outside to do anything, and instead spend the whole trip lounging in my grandparents’ living room and watching TV.
One of these days, I was lying on the floor and texting my friends when my mom remarked: “Bonnie, look — this drama is about pro gamers.”
Did that combination of words strike immediate fear into my heart? Yes, but nevertheless, I looked. The show’s English name is Go Go Squid! (which doesn’t remotely resemble the original Chinese, by the way) and I don’t remember what was happening in the episode, but it prompted me to open Twitter and make a joke about the show’s fundamental inaccuracy.
https://twitter.com/bonniequeue/status/1154720879772753920
I said as much, too — something along the lines of “pro gamers aren’t actually this interesting” — and my dad laughed.
“How come?” he asked. “Whenever I read your articles, I feel like they’re very interesting.” (He was referring to the series of player profiles that I wrote for the Overwatch League website this season.)
I shrugged. “Sure, but my whole job is to make them interesting.”
“What, you mean they don’t talk enough when you interview them?”
I thought about the 35-minute interview I had conducted with Fury in Stage 2, during which he compared his team to mashed-together Play-Doh. “No. I guess what I mean is they’re just people. They’ve probably never even thought about half of the things I write about them.”
It’s a conversation that I find myself coming back to every now and then. The eternal question that everyone who makes esports content, whatever that may be, must eventually grapple with is … ‘Why’?
More specifically, why do you do this? What’s the point?
The easiest — and not entirely incorrect — answer is that there is no point to content. Of course, you could then argue that there’s no point to anything, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
From a pragmatic point of view, content creation serves no purpose. After all, it’s not like any of it gets done for the money. So why do we continue to do it? Why do we take the words and lives of players and shape them into stories? Why do we pull back the curtain on the competitor to reveal the person?
I don’t consider myself a journalist. I will always refer to myself as a writer because I like what the word implies. “Writer”. Storyteller.
The purpose of writing and film and photography is that it enriches our ultimate enjoyment of esports by allowing us to see things a little clearer, to understand the complexities of this scene a little better. How very human of us to keep doing something for no reason other than to maximize pleasure.
No, content has no practical purpose. But isn’t the pursuit of deeper understanding as good a purpose as any?
Tobi_jinmoment; Robert Paul, Blizzard Entertainment
Two years ago, I watched Ryujehong interrupt himself on the finals stage to sob into the bouquet of flowers in his arms. Ryujehong, the victor. Ryujehong, the captain. Ryujehong, sobbing on camera for the second time, two years later — having lost his chance to bask in the warm glow of being a champion again.
Esports is not fiction. The stories and narratives built up in esports become muddled and often end up unfulfilled, just because. It’s not like it’s a TV show, where there’s someone behind every decision, and a reason for every plot point and every ending. Sometimes reality just doesn’t work out, and that’s a bummer.
That doesn’t invalidate the importance of the stories, though. The second player profile I wrote this season was about Envy, who currently plays for the Shanghai Dragons, but who started the season as captain of the Toronto Defiant. I spoke to him at the tail end of Stage 2, and was met with truly surprising openness and candor. He told me about the meaning behind his knuckle tattoos, something that he said he’d never spoken about to any interviewer before. He expressed his insecurities about being the captain of such a new team, and shared his worries that he wasn’t ready to fulfill such a role yet.
Envy probably doesn’t even remember the interview now — I wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot about it a matter of hours after giving it — but it was a big turning point for me. As I sat in front of my laptop that night, transcribing Envy’s words, I realized that this was important work. And I know that sounds conceited, but isn’t it important that we as audience members see these players as people, rather than just competitors on a faraway stage? Everything he’d said to me might never have seen the light of day if I hadn’t been there to scoop up his words and mold them into something that others could understand, relate to, empathize with.
I wonder how many people think about what I wrote whenever the camera sweeps past Envy onstage and shows, for a second, the tattoos on his fingers as they rest lightly on his mouse. No, the storyline of Envy overcoming his insecurities to become the strong leader that the Defiant needed didn’t come to fruition. But the Envy that I tried to portray in the profile, the person who, above all, wants to change, to be better— that one is still around, and that will always count for something.
I wrote about how narratives are the lifeblood of esports in a previous piece, but that sentiment means so much more to me now after having been a part of this tumultuous year, after having been allowed to contribute so significantly to the telling of various stories this season. And I know I’m lucky. Insanely lucky, really. The ease with which I transitioned from overzealous fan to paid writer is something that could only happen because of the blurry line between fandom and industry in esports. I’m under no illusions about that.
Do I “deserve” all the opportunities I’ve gotten? You’ll probably get a different answer depending on who you ask. Regardless, I’m here. I’m here because it’s stories that I love most about esports, and stories are what I want to give back to it.
Robert Paul, Blizzard Entertainment
