I wanted to see what I could do to gather some feedback from naïve subjects in efforts to provide suggestions for Overwatch League viewability. I originally intended for this to have a real experimental design, however, time constraints (I was technically vacationing, which involved being on my parents’ schedule) led to things having to be adjusted to cater to the reality of the situation. I was unable to leave them as complete naïve subjects, as it became rapidly clear that as non-gamers, things needed explaining. In light of this, I did attempt to have my explanations be essentially what I would explain to someone if the game were on in a bar and I needed to explain things in a snap.

My dad provided significantly more feedback, as my mom spent most of the game trying to figure out just what was going on, and tapped out after falling asleep during game 2 (Don’t read too much into this, she falls asleep during every movie she watches). There are so many ways I could have done a better job of organizing this, but it was a spur of the moment thing, and my writing will probably reflect that. My initially wrote question set is the only document of mine that has disappeared in the last 5 years, so my questioning ended up mostly done on the fly.

Based on the information provided by my parents, here are my 3 specific key takeaways (suggested improvements to come later on):

1. You can not reasonably expect them to understand the basic flow of the game without some instruction or clarification of concepts, if they aren’t gamers.

2. Without audio the broadcast itself does not have enough information that communicates how the game and each of the game modes work.

Elaboration: My dad suggested that they do a quick game mode primer before each map, that would explain the concepts to a first-time viewers.

3. The casters (Hex and Semmler) did not have enough game knowledge to anticipate what was about to happen.

Elaboration: This is critical, because I know from watching other casters that they actively discuss and speculate about things like ult economy, strategies, and generally more in-depth topics much moreso than the duo we watched. The same thing is present in Monte and Doa’s casts, and was extremely prevalent in the ZP and Crumbzz duo during the Fiesta Bowl broadcasts. I would like to make a point of avoiding commenting on Hex here, because I believe that Semmler makes it significantly more difficult for him to discuss more in-depth concepts. My personal opinion is that I don’t believe Semmler understands the game well enough (yet) to provide the necessary prerequisite information, and given his huge miscall on the JJonak bodyblock following an Earthshatter in a previous match, it’s not an easily-solvable issue.

Edit: I would like to clarify that this statement is not about Hex’s game knowledge, just about what comes across on-screen as a duo.

The Game

The game that we ended up watching was the Houston Outlaws against the London Spitfire. It was cast by Semmler and Hexagrams, and the analyst desk consisted of Puckett, Bren, Reinforce, and Soe.

Team Allegiance

My dad isn’t an engineer but is unbelievably mechanically proficient (not in terms of game mechanics, in understanding how things work). He’s passionate about cars, machines, and in general, if it has an engine, he has an understanding. He immediately stated that he was a Spitfire fan, and upon being asked why gave me the simple answer of “I like Spitfires!”. He didn’t really pay attention to the Outlaws logo or branding initially, considering he made a point of it later in the broadcast once he saw the logo. I found this interesting because that he has a friend who actually owns a racetrack and related business in Texas, and I actually believed he would cheer for the Outlaws on that basis.

My mom opted to not cheer for any side without being given a reason to, but did ask me what team I cheered for. This implies a primarily social reasoning for choosing allegiance to a team, rather than having a real reason. Given that the Overwatch League is primarily geographic, my assumption is that most people will choose on that basis, but in other situations, teams cheered for may just be the result of wanting to essentially emotionally support someone who is supporting a team rather than the team itself (wanting to align your allegiance rather than needlessly dissent).

The Desk

My dad complimented Puckett’s hosting, but for the most part, didn’t comment on the desk. I would have thought he would have liked Reinforce, however, both he and my Mom were unable to understand Reinforce without turning the volume up. I had no trouble hearing Reinforce, however, if there was any background noise, I absolutely would have had trouble myself.

I personally found that Bren and Soe provided nothing but general commentary, and nothing that actually assisted the viewer with understanding what had just occurred. Reinforce almost seems handcuffed by the fact that he has nobody to truly discuss anything of substance with. My personal opinion following this broadcast is that the analyst desk should consist of at minimum, two of the more informed analysts. Only having one provides a difficult dynamic for someone like Reinforce to work with based on the sheer difference in knowledge.

Understanding Game Concepts

1. What They Understood

After the entire series had ended, my dad commented that he was beginning to understand the teamplay, but for the most part, he just saw colors clashing and things happening. He was somewhat intrigued by this, and rather than continuing to watch the game, he said he would be more inclined to play it to learn. Perhaps Blizzard has an opportunity to run something like an Overwatch School, or create a 30 minute to an hour-long program to educate viewers on basic game concepts.

Something that I feel important to mention is the fact that my dad has been supportive of my gaming for over 8 years now, and while he may not be in tune with the strategic gameplay objectives, he knows about point and shoot, mostly from my time creating Call of Duty videos. He noted that Soldier 76 was by far the easiest to follow. Perhaps this is indicative that people who have been exposed to first person shooters but not other viewmodels have an easier time understanding if the shooting is the focus. I am not saying that observers should focus on S76, but it is an interesting observation nonetheless. This also led to his one and only player-related observation that LiNkzr was effective on Soldier on King’s Row.

2. What They Didn’t

Well, in accordance with my first key takeaway, they initially didn’t understand anything, and the understanding did not come intuitively. Perhaps it was just that the first map was Volskaya, but my parents were completely clueless when it came to understanding the game concepts, and 2CP would be seemingly the easiest to grasp based on the information presented on the scoreboard, let alone the map. I don’t believe either of my parents were paying attention during the map fly-through, as my dad had the misfortune of asking about the point during a quick snap to the hacked Sombra mega, and thought that was the point.

My parents both, after 3:30 of gameplay, and London giving up the first point, asked what the score was. They seemed to have noticed that something was happening but they didn’t clue into concept of the game mode until after both teams had completed their first round and the score was tied up at 2–2. Another misfortune with regards to Sombra was my dad hearing the term EMP and also thinking that a hacked health pack had something to do with it. This question caught me off-guard because I figured they would be able to figure this out just from the scoreboard, but it was indeed asked.

Suggested Improvements

1. Communicate more information in the limited downtime between fights with the top-down map

My Dad felt that the top-down map needed to be used more to show how the teams were positioning pre-fight. He commented specifically that the map really helped him understand how the teams were working together and communicated the most information before a teamfight broke out. For a viewer, it also helped them connect the dots with respect to learning the map itself. This was most useful on King of the Hill, where the game begins with a rollout. I believe that in this match specifically, they used the top-down view the most during King of the Hill, so perhaps this is a perceptional bias.

2. Casters should try to speculate more

He also felt that it was really difficult to try to compare what the casters were saying vs. the action on screen. Bearing in mind that he was still in a learning stage, he was much more receptive to the casters anticipating a play vs describing it in retrospect, and it was extremely difficult to dedicate any amount of thought to reconciling the play with the commentary when the pace of the game demanded attention to the present.

During my travels last summer, I ended up overhearing a news segment about Roger Ailes’ legacy at Fox. What really stuck out to me was his approach to the broadcast. I’m hoping I’m recalling this correctly, but his rule was that you had to be able to close your eyes and be able to fully understand what was going on. Obviously that isn’t possible with a game like Overwatch, but there will be times where people are paying attention to only the audio of the broadcast. Likewise, there will be times where people have the sound muted and are only paying attention to the visual aspects.

I don’t have a ton to add here that isn’t going to come in another piece that I’ve put significantly more time and thought into. Thanks for reading if you stuck around. You can follow me on Twitter at @Siignal.