I never got the whole “Idra Is a Dick” thing until I saw some live footage. I may play Zerg and root for them in the GSL, but…
:)
(applauding and smiling)
I imagine it’s easier to have an easily pronounced nickname than something that may be difficult for a non-native speaker to pronounce (or remember if it’s a common name.) It’s a bit silly in a global community to use your real name anyway Tom; you don’t think you are the only Tom Chick on the internet do you?
Yeah, I never got the “Idra is a dick” until I saw some of this stuff.
Wow, hubris much?
I’m told Korean players actually do use their real names and are usually referred to by the real names by Korean commentators. I think American and European fans however would be hopelessly lost if they only had Korean names to go on though.
Take Idra for example since we’re discussing him. Most fans know his real name (Greg Fields). But many people actually call him “Grack” which is a nick name that sprang up organically when a famous korean player misspelled his name. People just like nicknames, even in real sports. And yeah, he does make a good villian which helps the drama of SC2 as a spectator sport.
I’d also make the point that nicknames are far easier to remember than real names, which does help fans do better player tracking from tournament to tournament.
Why is it silly? Aren’t sports, film, and Facebook global communities? And while I’m not the only Tom Chick on the internet – there’s a guy in Maine who routinely gets my email and can attest to that – I am the only one who writes about videogames for a living. How many professional Starcraft players are there with the name Greg Fields, or football players with the name Roger Staubach, or actors with the name Chow Yun Fat?
-Tom
Real names seem much more common in the pro fighting game community than in the SC2 community. Many of the best fighting gamers are exclusively known by their real names: Justin Wong, Daigo Umehara, Mike Ross, Marn (a meshing of his first and last names), Ricky Ortiz, etc. And generally even those who go by aliases are known to the fans by real names.
Most people who play videogames on the internet use handles, and wisely so judging by the weirdos we all run into routinely. As mentioned earlier, if you build up a rep with a particular handle, that’s what people know you as and that’s who you are. Going by your real name in online games just in case you get famous one day is a pretty weird strategy.
Names have power. At one time people believed if someone knew your true name they had power over you and could cast curses or other harmful magicks. Nowadays they have a wealth of information about you at their fingertips, with the absolute potential to do harm should they so choose. The curses were superstition. The internet is real. I don’t blame anyone who prefers to go by an alias.
Part of the problem is 50% of the SC2 community is Korean, and who remember their names?
More seriously, I think RealID is a good first step by Blizzard. All we need is for people in tournaments to be referred to by real name, both by commentators and the actual screen overlay. Dual-name is awkward, but I think the industry will be taken more seriously as a whole if they use real names.
Well, contempt and self-loathing are differentiated only by their targets. I think that canard is actually just a cliche – it’s common to feel both at once. All my cockiness came from a simultaneous conceit and low self-esteem. Cognitive dissonance is weird.
I thought it was short for Marneto, a nickname he got while owning with mags in texas.
More seriously than being the national fucking sport of Korea?
It’s been the national sport of Korea for ten years, and how much did it grow in that entire decade until starcraft 2 came out? Not at all. Anyway, I want real names for a less altruistic reason: people will take me more seriously when I start talking about esports.
Excatly, chequers. That’s why I was wondering about it. It just seems mildly ridiculous to me, in an arena that probably already looks wildly ridiculous to a lot of the outside world.
Oh, please. That’s a weak and paranoid argument for fake names in e-sports. If you’re worried about identity theft or internet stalkers, professional gamers are in no greater danger that TV actors, college athletes, bloggers, or politicians*. You don’t see them going by leet handles for a variety of reasons.
The fact of the matter is that supposedly cool nicknames are part of the trappings of videogaming, and that carries over into e-sports because the dudes who use them think they’re cool. Not because they’re worried someone’s going to get their credit card info or nail dead animals to their front doors.
-Tom
- And I know, because I’ve done half of those things under my real name!
You knew him as George W. Bush, I knew him as Halliburton.InVadeR.
I agree that’s the case, I also think it’s probably a lost cause to try and change it at this point.
Of course, having everyone in the field have ridiculous nicknames hasn’t stopped hip hop from becoming huge.
That was Cheney. Bush’s handle was the simple, yet elegant, D3C1D3R.
People arguing over real names vs handles - boring.
People posting great SC2 replays so I don’t have to hunt them down - awesome.
All sporting events are inherently better when there is a villain.
I point at roller derby as an example of a non-e sport where players regularly go by nicknames. It’s just a cultural thing.
I have almost no SC2 knowledge, but I see what Cruncher did there, and it was awesome. Also always good to see an underdog beat a snob in an upset victory.