Espn and 40k

[wittdooley]

The main issue with 40K is how long it takes to play. With sporting events, ESPN can broadcast them on the cheap because they require no editing; they simply turn the cameras on and point them at the action. A televised 40K series would work wonderfully as a web-series due to the time it takes to play a game.

Require no editing? You're kidding, right?

[SonicPara]

A live sporting event, like a baseball game requires very little if any editing. Sure they throw together a couple highlights on the fly but all of the graphics and fancy overlays on the screen are pre-made and usually modular so that they can be reused during the next game. When it comes to the bulk of the coverage, it is just a network of cameras focusing on different things and a guy in a room directing which shot to show.

Compare that to a 30 or 60 minute show of an event that lasts 2+ hours. Such a show would need extensive editing not just to make it fit in the allotted time but also for it to maintain coherency. It would require a lot of post-production which can be expensive. A live sporting event requires extensive planning but little after the cameras start rolling and filming the event.

[DarkLink]

Beyond 40k's failings as a competitive game, 40k would never take off on something as mainstream as espn because no one knows what 40k is.

Scrabble is a household name. You might not play it often yourself, but you know what it is. But most people don't know what tabletop gaming is, let alone 40k.

Plus, the rules for scrabble are simple. Same with any major sport. You might not know what every penalty is in football, but you know that it's a bunch of guys trying to get the ball across the field, while tackling each other. Because European football is boring. You'd never get many people to enjoy the game, because you need to understand so many rules to even know what's going on and why are they rolling so many dice that most people would be turned away.

[Verilance]

One thing to think about though...

My son introduced me to watching competitive Starcraft from Korea, I know the games are faster ad more easily watched but if someone can spend time watching Starcraft I am sure somewhere there is a market for watching tournament level 40K after all even chess championships can be found on the internet.

[Kovnik Obama]

40K would make just as good a spectator event as things like competitive gaming. Almost all games are inherently unbalanced, heck even classic sports like Baseball are unbalanced with teams like the Yankees and Red Sox able to "stack the deck" by buying away most of the talent from other teams. For all of the obvious balance issues between codices in 40K, there are so many layers to the strategy from list building to deployment and decision making that spectating 40K can be quite enjoyable. There is a reason that recording battle reports has become so popular on youtube.

Your analogy is wrong. Almost every game are inherently balanced. Chess, checkers, tic tac to, are all perfectly balanced. Inbalance in game is what causes a game to be unenjoyable. Having better players on your team do not induce inbalance in the game itself, as long as the victory conditions are the same on one side and on the other.

And recorded battle reports aren't really that popular, if you compare to just about every other recorded sportive events.

[wittdooley]

A live sporting event, like a baseball game requires very little if any editing. Sure they throw together a couple highlights on the fly but all of the graphics and fancy overlays on the screen are pre-made and usually modular so that they can be reused during the next game. When it comes to the bulk of the coverage, it is just a network of cameras focusing on different things and a guy in a room directing which shot to show.

Compare that to a 30 or 60 minute show of an event that lasts 2+ hours. Such a show would need extensive editing not just to make it fit in the allotted time but also for it to maintain coherency. It would require a lot of post-production which can be expensive. A live sporting event requires extensive planning but little after the cameras start rolling and filming the event.

Good call. I was associating the directing with the editing. My B.

[laestli]

Considering the much geater popularity of chess world-wide I'd expect that to be on ESPN long before a brick of dice game where the added focus and scrutenty would make sloppiness of RaW painful instead of just a burden.

That said, wargaming in all forms, from Chess, Xianqi, and Go to Warmachine, FoW, and WH40K simply work much much batter in battle report form then Live.

On the other hand, basebal, golf, darts, and pokerl get plenty of screen time, so Warmachine on ESPN isn't to terribbe3ly far-fetched.

edit: One thing that would certainly help dice based wargamming break into Live brodcasting in a sustainable manner would be a comperhensive dice app with stat line data base and a game to game loadable army list. A second thing would be grid based ranged action and movement instead of tape measure based.

[Occam]

Cool. Nice to hear what people think.
I never said anything about doing it live; I really meant more in doing it with the ESPN style.

[SotonShades]

Well I'd be up for giving it a go if anyone wants to donate a camera and some video editting time. I figure we'd need at least the two players, two camera men, a tripod, three cameras, gaffa tape, a rubber duck, three XXL gloves and an oyster!

Actually, that might be a different plan...