Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community

Interesting way to frame the question, Tanner. I've wondered the same thing about Poker and how it (and other card games) get plenty of coverage and seem to be cooler among a more general set of Americans than video games.

On the one hand, maybe it's a chicken and egg question having to do with how the coverage itself is received? On the one hand, you have to have an audience who is familiar enough with the competition to understand the significance of various moves and plays, but on the other hand, there has to be a spectacle to it that makes it TV-worthy. Personally, I don't "get" a lot of the drama that some people apparently see in televised poker, so I think it's safe to say that at least part of the problem with televised videogaming is finding a way to put it on TV that succeeds in conveying the drama and intensity of playing it. Ruffin made some interesting comments about this problem at Curmudgeon Gamer.

What I'm getting at is that maybe part of the success of StarCraft on TV depends on the games format. That is, the third-person omniscient view point takes in a lot of the action at once, and much of the action is pretty easy to see without having to follow the player's decisions and movements precisely. You may not see the plan until it comes together (for example, you might not know what kind of building is being constructed), but the combat action itself is pretty clear. Throw in some commentary to explain the roles the various units are playing, and you've got some good TV. Good TV in itself probably wouldn't be enough to start a whole Starcraft craze, but it wouldn't hurt.

I didn't catch the CBS coverage, but it strikes me that Guitar Hero would be similarly easy to televise. Any kind of game relying on a first-person view would be pretty tricky, though. I've wondered whether in, say, Counter-Strike, if it would be possible to follow the game from a neutral, floating point of view that hovered slightly above the players. That might work, but you might miss a lot of the quick reflex action that skilled players are renowned for. A tagalong view (where you spectate through the "eyes" of a player) can be really disorienting or even induce motion-sickness, so I doubt that would work.

Anyway, it's indeed an interesting question, and approaching it through portrayals of masculinity sounds like an interesting and valuable discussion. I look forward to hearing what you find out.