"I'm going to come across as a real negative Nelly in this interview, but..."

Let's start with something that might seem banal, but at the same time fundamental in every interview. Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself? Mainly for the communities that aren't really familiar with your name.

Sure! I think you could describe me as your typical gamer. I rage, I flame and get very emotional with eSports. I started out with friends playing Unreal Tournament 99 and in '03 went to play MOHAA, where I achieved relative success and moved over to COD1 & COD. I played a little bit of COD4 in the first two months of its release with sound Belgian names such as Stevy and Ecu, but moved over to only working on websites since. I had previously been involved for the TEK9 website from '05 till '08, during my "career" (dreams are nought but a personal fantasy). I handled the LowLandLions website for about 1,5 years, and then had a dry spell where I got tired of being active in eSports for about 1 year. I then went back to TEK9 and Call of Duty 4 when Jetset approached me about them not having any good features or critical articles, which I provided for them and gradually became more involved again until the point when Camiel could no longer work on the page due to his university studies and I took over the role of Editor-in-Chief. That's been about 1 year now!

What actually made you choose TEK-9? You have a positively charged experience; there's no doubt that every door was opened to you back then. So what pushed you to accept Jetset's offer?

 Well to be quite frank, it wasn't. I presume this to be a mistake on my part, not being ambitious enough to create "usable" contacts with other organisations and TEK9 was never a conscious offer, but more a pure love of the Call of Duty series, of which TEK9 was (and still is, in my opinion) the only output to express that in writing experience. I perhaps wish I could have gathered other experiences with other organisations, but via via, it never was to be and I was "restricted" to staying within Call of Duty 4 and its competition.

Basically, from the previous answer, we could conclude that Call of Duty represents a huge part of your life. Why?

 It's where I started and what I have been playing for the last five years, it's also where I grew to know most of my eSports friends and got the writing opportunity / school that I had, I wrote about COD 1/2/4 and their games, their teams & players. I followed other eSports titles very closely, but as TEK9 remained exclusively COD, it's where I got most of my experience and I would dub myself an expert in the "field", it's only unfortunate that it never broke through as a major ( CS / SC / Quake / Moba) title over the years, otherwise it would have reached even more people. Regardless of the game itself, I care more for the experiences and memories that accompany the game, as I'm sure most "pro players" would agree with

 

For which reason did you get particularly interested in writing over improving your in-game skills?

 Well back then, I was your average teenager who didn't want to spend any time on his homework. This meant I had loads of free time on my hands after school. So what I'd do was read TEK9 each day and follow up on the scene, but as I was also playing at the time, so I would sometimes see line-up or team changes before they were announced and one day I just figured, why not write about it myself? Had always been fascinated by English language and fancied a go; contacted Jetset whether or not I could try out. He gave me a shot, helped me out and from there on out, I was a 'writer'. Looking back, though, at what I wrote back then, it was quite horrid and I am relieved my English has improved over the years! Ever since I started, it just was a very good time killer and after I grew more confident in my knowledge on the scene, I moved to writing more critically and do interviews, features, etc.; which is of course the most rewarding part of eSports writing.

I took the liberty of having a look on your Twitter page, @Bcrbo, where you mentioned at one point in your description the fact that you're pursuing journalism studies in university. Has this after-school hobby turned into more of a passion?

 Definitely. I had a really troublesome (call it lazy if you must know) "high school" (education from ages 12-18 in Belgium) and never knew what to study. I kept swapping between courses but the one mainstay had been languages, throughout all courses (be it Latin, IT, Sciences, Economics) and I picked up on that. I originally thought IT was more of a thing for me, but quickly found out that I had no real interest in programming so I dropped out of my university in my 2nd year (had passed the first, but programming went from 5 hours a week to over 20) and went on the look-out for something else to study. Luckily there was an applied linguistics university degree I could go for in the same city, I went for English & German and graduated last year and then had to pick a Masters. I did not have the patience to do a Masters in Translating and went back to writing and stumbled upon a Masters in Journalism which I'm currently enrolled in. Hopefully by the end of the year, I'm done and will be hunting for a job (oh deary me) that would – again, hopefully - combine my passion for gaming and writing. Hello eSports job - that would be a dream come true.

What do you consider to be the best part of gaming?

 Live events and being part of an audience as something remarkable is happening. There is simply nothing that beats the sensation of sitting in a crowd of a couple of thousand of gamers or gaming enthusiasts that see either two teams or two players go head to head for a lot of cash and honour. You live through each surround, each headshot and each clutch as if you were standing behind the player yourself. Ideally it has commentary too. I find watching eSports games to be more entertaining and riveting if there is a legendary shoutcaster doing the commentary. It makes it more real and in a weird way, more professional.

Needless to say, your affection for video-games and writing is immense. Now, imagine a situation where you would be confronted to the difficult choice: gaming or solely writing about it. What would you select? Which reasons would stand behind your choice?

I am actually not that much of a gamer. I'm more a fan of eSports and particularly enjoy spectating tournaments and witnessing it while it's happening. So for that reason, I would probably go for writing and still hope to be involved in gaming via that way.

Any Call of Duty title you would put over the others in terms of enjoyment?

Personally, Call of Duty 2! Had the best rhythm and properly-sized maps to allow for both interesting long distance aiming and full-on rushes. The random headshots are annoying to receive, but so awesome to hand out; random flick across the map and you'd have a shot of a lifetime. Call of Duty 4 definitely outranks COD2 in terms of eSports & competition, but it just never floated my boat, it was too spammy, especially while I played actively (Hey SK-Gaming.de with your 5 SMGs on mp_crash) and as a scope back then. It just didn't work for me. Interesting to watch though, especially with QuadV casting back in the day.

How would you evaluate your persona and your impact within the e-sports scene?

Erm... as very small and limited. I tend to be an introvert person and unlike the bigger personalities, I don't want to shout & scream to get my opinion across, however just I feel it may be. I tend to stay in the background more often than not and as such, I doubt I have any real impact. In the COD4 scene, I think (hope/believe?) I'm respected and well thought of, although not everyone has always actively asked for my opinion on structural matters, even though I would have loved to share it (and I'm qualified enough to have one)... I would love to move on, after COD4 has finally reached its "final demise" (or sooner, if there's an offer) to more generally accepted eSports (SC2 is the buzz word right now), hoping CS:GO will be a big thing, but I doubt it (somehow, FPS seem to not be loved in eSports any more) and make a name for myself in that world. Maybe then I will have a real persona and impact.

So you plan to grow your e-sports journalist career even further?

I would really like that yes, my studies are coming to a close and with eSports becoming bigger and bigger. It's expanding in width, not so much in height, meaning that more teams & players are getting financial & professional support rather than the individual rewards that are going (prize purses haven't gone up in years, except for one-offs such as DotA 2 & Activision 1,000,000$ tournaments, but more events happen and as such, more money is shared over more players) in an upward trend. There are also more people behind the scenes that are now making the permanent move to eSports (think of shoutcasters doing it full time, think of Editor-in-Chiefs being brought on full time, think of managers of top teams focusing only on building their brands rather than doing it only at night, think of "entry level" writers getting some hardware / financial support rather than entirely nothing some five years ago) and I feel I deserve an opportunity to be amongst those people. I have dedicated enough time and effort to familiarize myself with eSports and know most of its ins and outs to report on it with knowledge and be rewarded accordingly (not saying I'm special, the more writers/community people that get to stay full time, the better!). It would just be a dream of mine to get to do eSports full time. Couldn't think of a more satisfying job, if I'm honest.

Let's switch over to your favourite title now. How do you regard COD4's current state?

I'd call us a niche title in eSports. There is enough community activity right now to keep the game competitively viable and still attract sponsors for online events (you may thank Heaven Media for attracting Corsair to do a $10,000 online event now!). There has been, however, a huge trend towards complacency from the top teams and top organismic. Most of all, people have such unrealistic expectations of how COD4 in 2011 should have been and how it should be in 2012. We constantly announce events with triggered prize pots (that's all fine & dandy, but misleading to a certain degree). Wow? I-series has >£9,000 event? That's amazing...wait we need 128 teams attending? Ok then..Dockyard LAN has €10,000? Great! 48 teams there? Unlikely...We just need to realize that COD4's days of AEF & TEX are behind us, we will not have events that have >€10,000 events. There are no more sponsor additives for the prize purse, everything is community related and all prize purses are gotten from sign-up fees (128 x 92£ x 5 = £58 880 and the prize purse only amounts to £9,600...something's amiss there, right?). I don't mind this trend, but people need to come to terms with our current predicament and accept that this is the only (unless some benefactor comes along) way COD4 will see events, when community people such as fekuj or Seanza make the effort to organize an event and fork over all the sign up fees to create a €5,000 prize purse for TOP 3. To end on a positive note, I feel we should be proud of generally having more than 150 active online teams for ESH or other tournaments and have a community that is quite active in terms of FPS and we should be proud with how we are keeping ourselves alive :) if the community people hadn't done it, COD4 would have died off completely after summer of '09.

That being said, do you believe in any possibility of improving our posture in the world of e-sports, and possibly stand out once again as a dominant name? If yes, how so? As you've mentioned, the CVC tournament came across as an incredible surprise, and in my opinion, that proves our capability to still highlight ourselves. 

No. I know this is a negative answer and I don't mean to squash dreams of idealistic youngsters or anything. My personal opinion is that it won't matter, all big events (ESL / ESWC / WCG) have left us lie by the wayside, most big teams (excluding Fnatic, Team-Dignitas, Anexis and Western Wolves) have ignored COD4 ever since the Summer of 08 and there is no professional institution that makes the COD scene a mainstream eSports title. Vita Nova's efforts (bar CyberGamer, it's been very limited, however good minded & hearted they may be) have been in vein for the most part and I say we need to stick to our new identity as a niche title. Online we still have a part to play, but that's only because of there not being any viable option in terms of marketability in team FPS's. I feel that CVC was a toss-up between COD4 & CSS, but perhaps the contact people over at Corsair saw COD as more marketable because of its higher console base and perhaps better graphics. If Corsair continue their eSports intentions, I don't think it'll be exclusively to COD and will be to different eSports titles, to appeal to more crowds. COD4's online appeal won't last longer than CS:GO's release either (or another COD game that is actually worth playing on a pc & competitively). I'd love to be proven wrong, though. Don't misunderstand me either. COD4 is a fun place to be, a community of many friends, but I think our role in mainstream eSports was a short highlight in 2008 when we were poised to take over, but didn't and have been slowly dropping since. It's MOBA that's the new thing now. MOBA and SC2

Judging from your previous answers, you do believe in the undeniable downfall of COD4 in terms of competition. For how long do you see it keeping up on a stable rhythm before completely vanishing in history?

I'm going to come across as a real negative Nelly in this interview, but I don't think we will make it past 2012. I would say that about half of our current top teams only play for the little money they make of it (mostly online then), as can be seen by their relatively inactive practice regimes (they just don't care anymore and at a certain point, there isn't much new to learn except play a bit to keep your aim "fresh") they maintain. From what I can see, 2011 gave us a lot of players and teams that have real talent and aim and the possibility to be really good gamers, I just hope for their sakes that their efforts haven't been in vein. It all comes down to community effort, as explained in previous answers. If the people like fekuj / Seanza / stripzz / dfb / MSI & gamersject stop hosting their events, well then the simple conclusion is that there's nothing to play for any more. As soon as there are no more events, teams will stop caring and you'll see a massive drop in top level players moving away. We have a lot of talented players who could take over, but would probably not have the money to attend all or any events that are out there (with less events, organisations will spend less money on their teams) and you end up with weak events that will not get a big following on streams, etc. If all those people stay convinced & motivated to get things going in COD4, then I wouldn't doubt for a second that we could have a very successful year as we did in 2011 (successful in terms of how many events hosted, competition at each event wasn't always of the highest standard). Let's just hope it's the latter, but you'd best ask all those individuals listed how they are going into 2012.

How do you see e-sports in 10 years?

It's difficult to say really. 10 years ago, I doubt anyone would have said we'd come along this far. I think we needn't necessarily hope to become a mainstream sport as happened in South-Korea, they are a unique case. I would only hope that by that time, advertising online has become more profitable, organisations have a solid income and in all eSports title, the TOP 20 can enjoy being sent to events across Europe, USA & Asia without financial difficulty. The longer we wait, the more socially accepted it'll eventually become, gaming already is a particularly popular topic if you say "I make €500 a month playing games", people don't shun you any more but want to learn more. I suppose we will grow bigger, more teams, more players that can make a living from it, that develop a fan following and organisations (and players alike) who stick to their contracts and a whole bunch of behind-the-scenes people who can work comfortably within eSports as a full time profession. There will always be new talented gamers arriving in the scene, that's the only 100% truth eSports has, time will bring new gamers. Other than that, it's basically a guessing game, too many variables to predict with certainty.

I'll allow myself to throw in a (hopefully) less stressful question. Which are your interests bar computer-related concerns?

Haha, it's not stressful at all. Don't people say it's good to vent? Well, I always listen to music. But I don't obsess over it, I just have it open 24/7 (except when I'm in class), it's curious to some but I need to surround myself with sounds constantly. When I sleep, music is playing, when I'm eating, there will be music, when I'm going to & from uni, it's with music on. It's a weird habit I've grown accustom to over the years. Besides that, I don't have too much free time apart from my university and my girlfriend (although I'd definitely call her an interest!), except for movies. I love watching movies. I feel they are a visual adventure (especially Kubrick's work, I am simply in love with the way he perfected his movies) and a great way to tell stories. So I'm staying quite multimedia, I'd call myself a child of the inter-webs (oh boy that sounds so sad). Travelling is another hobby (thanks to eSports that's sent me to so many countries already) of mine though.

Personally, I consider you as one of the prime journalists that, luckily enough, e-sports possesses. I am strongly confident not to be the only person sharing this opinion. By what virtue did this happen? Any advices you could give?

The one thing I pride myself in is my rather strong knowledge of the English language and my ability to spot mistakes in writing. I think the foundation of sound writing is your knowledge of the language (I know saying stuff like this will generally lead people to scan my work for any mistakes so they can point it in my face, which is their right). You could be writing about the most interesting topic ever, but if it's filled with mistakes and crummy spelling, I personally lose respect for the writer. It shows a lack of interest in the subject and a lack of respect to his audience, as being an eSports journalist is more than just reporting, it's also entertaining. I don't think I'm any of the best, though, as my grasp of English idioms and creative writing is not (yet?) good enough. It's all about being hardworking, learning the scene you are covering (yes team x changed player y for reason z, but try to add another dimension, try to find a causal link and give some knowledge about the team or player that isn't standard knowledge yet) and doing your best. People will appreciate you and help you improve, which, in turn, ends up making you a better writer as well. Just need to be patient and give your writing time to develop. My writing style of '06 and even still '08 was more boring and less linguistically interesting than it is now. A good tip is to notice when someone uses an interesting word or turn of phrase you could pick up, ever expanding your vocabulary. Work hard, listen to those teaching you (as there surely will be enough) and be your own worst critic.

We could say you're one of the main names behind TEK9. Besides it being the premier coverage portal for the Call of Duty scene, a lot of people are complaining about the website's weak administration regime and a rather extended period for a beta stage. How would you reply to this statement?

I would agree completely. TEK9 is forever beta and finding good admins (and being able to properly check up on them) is hard. The first bit is the fact the original coder made the entire page by himself and was supposed to fill in the "beta" bits later on, but his real life became more important (he was a coder in real life too and I can imagine doing a job for 8 hours a day being paid and then having to do more of the same job for free, would become tedious), which I would never blame him for. Since TEK9 had, by that time, been bought by Heaven Media, the responsibility of maintaining the core structure of the page was now theirs. Perhaps they reacted a bit too slowly or were not fully understanding of in how bad a state the page was, but for whichever reasons, nothing seemed to be done. A couple of months ago, I received the good news, though, from Steven (dfb) that HM had set aside a good chunk of money to hire a professional coder to redo the entire coding of TEK9 and other HM sites. We then both created a document to describe in full, the functionalities the new page should possess and what the coder would have to do. Right before the New Year, Steven then went to the HM offices in the UK for a couple of days to discuss everything with the higher management and I am going over to Steven's house next week to discuss these plans further. So I'm quite positive that TEK9 will see a page that works and is a more enjoyable place to be (you'd not want to live in a house that's missing an entire outside wall either, now would you? Gets a bit drafty in the winter, brr). Moreover, a place I can better manage as an admin (more control over users and way more control over admins so I can immediately weed out the good ones from the bad ones, which is impossible right now). SoakR, in the mean time, has also worked on a little bridging time to restructure the current staff to become more efficient with fewer (and more trustworthy) people. Which I hope to implement any day now.

Is there anything we can anticipate from your behalf in the near future?

I'm not sure! My biggest concern right now is finishing my Masters in Journalism and getting a job, whether in the "real" world or online. I might have a new project coming up, which is a combination of both eSports and writing again. Although this time, it'll be focused around my native tongue, Dutch and cater to the BeNe scene nearly exclusively. It all depends, however much I enjoy getting a small financial stipend for my work at TEK9, if I were to get a real job that would take up my entire day, real life would simply take over. If the rewards of an eSports career are nearly the same as those in real life, then I'd always choose the eSports career, just because it's such a unique place to be part of. We'll see in 6 to 9 months though, what life bring.

Well, Bob, the affability of this conversation is indescribable. I had an extremely pleasant interview, and hope to interfere with you in the near future. I express my deepest gratitude for your time. Any final shutouts you would like to make?

I'd very much like to thank you for this opportunity. Usually I am the one on your side of the conversation, it's actually the first time someone wanted to interview me, haha. Basically a shout out (have met too many people over the years to name 'em all) to all those I have played with or against, I have written for, with and about, all the COD people I have met at countless events over the years, the current TEK9 crew for their effort in keeping this community alive (you're legends!). A special thanks to dfb of Heaven Media for giving me a chance to become the new Editor-in-Chief of TEK9 back then, as well as Birger of WesternWolves for an opportunity in LowLandLions, back in 2008. Oh and my team, MEGA (Davy, Sticky, gyoom & knaller), COD2 online only! Kiss to my girlfriend Ann.

 

zauron

Awesome read, not very often do we get to hear the views of Bob!

Great interview indeed!

BoB is amazing! Great Read