Bruno Interview

Thanks for taking the time to do this! I'm sure your fans will appreciate it.

First off, a story not many people may know: How did you get involved in eSports?

Bruno: It was never deliberate, I found myself in eSports mostly by accident. I ran a software consultancy business and decided to sell it and take some time off. As the workaholic I am, I couldn't get myself to not do anything, and after meeting shostakovich, we talked about the idea of creating what would later be dota-academy.



Eventually, that got me to meet some people from the community, and right before TI2, the guys from DotaCommentaries invited me to go with them. They also put me in touch with Valve so that I could offer the information I had to add to the show. Everyone at Valve was super friendly and really liked the idea of adding stats to the analysis. As we were setting things up, I stumbled upon 2GD, we had a drink and a chat, and he suggested that I should be part of the Analyst panel. Valve agreed and suddenly, I'm in eSports!

What role do statistics have in eSports? Is it similar/different from traditional sports?

Bruno: Statistics are tricky things in sports. In order to be able to apply them in any relevant way, you have to make assumptions that certain things remain constant and that certain things change in a somewhat predictable way.



We can say that Messi's 73 goals in a season is impressive, because other football (soccer) clubs in Europe play in average the same amount of matches. If for some reason Barcelona played twice as many matches as the rest, then that number is less impressive and Goals per game would be more relevant.



If you look at the NBA, you'll see that some of the records held are from 50+ years ago. No one can rebound as much as Wilt Chamberlain just because there's a 3 second rule now. And scores are higher in average because there's a shot clock.



As games change, certain statistics become insignificant. However, sports change at a slow pace and, in general, very gradually. eSports change a lot and really quickly, so something that happened 2 months ago might now be statistically insignificant.



Add to that the fact that mental form is way more volatile than physical form, and you have people performing excellently one week and terribly the next one, so trying to look at that player's average without looking at something else like the standard deviations, can be pointless.



The bottom line is, statistics are useful to understand the game better, both in eSports and sports. However, in eSports, you have to understand the game VERY well before grabbing a bunch of numbers and plastering them on the screen.

What do you think drives our fascination with stats?

Bruno: There's a very cheesy quote that says, and I'm paraphrasing: "If you need to decide on something and you're not sure which decision to take, flip a coin, not because it's good to let chance decide, but rather because in that moment when the coin is in the air, you'll know which choice is the one you really want". Few things scare people as much as a coin flip. 50/50 chance is something that we can comprehend in theory, but can never fully accept in reality.



Humans love predictability. It's in the basis of our brain: you plant a seed, it grows into a plant; you eat meat, you feel full; you sleep, you don't feel tired anymore. But most things in this world are not deterministic, and it's those things that unleash man's imagination the most. Multiple Gods of Sun, Rain and Death were created to try to explain unreliable phenomena, just because we needed to cope with them in our minds.



Fast forward a few thousand years, and we still need to understand certain smaller things. Why is my team better than yours? Why is this player the best? Most of the time, it's just personal perception, but we search for validation in statistics, and as a side effect, they also give us some basic understanding of certain situations. But don't be deceived, our FASCINATION with statistics is because it's a great tool to match our personal vision of the universe (or a game), with the reality of it all.

What is your favourite stat of all time?

Bruno: Wilt Chamberlain's 100 points in a game has a certain beauty to it: the round number, the seeming impossibility to ever reach that milestone again. I'm not sure if it's my favourite stat ever, but it sounds so much like a fairy tale. There's a ring to "There was once a man that scored 100 points in a game" that "There was once a man that scored 107 points in a game" doesn't have. Statistics, once time passes, are introductions to great stories, and stories have to sound good.



I do know however what my LEAST favourite stat is, and that's the record on most penalty misses in national football games. Martin Palermo missed 3 penalties in an Argentina - Colombia game where we lost 3-0...if those penalties had gone in, the story would've been different, but then I probably wouldn't remember it.

Alright, on to some different topics. Valve made their first steps into Fantasy Dota with the Compendium. What's the future of the Fantasy League?

Bruno: My main constraint with the Fantasy League is lack of availability. It takes a considerate amount of time and effort to do it, and time is something that I find myself lacking these days. It would've been impossible for me to keep up a Fantasy League DURING the West qualifiers, for example. I tried crowd sourcing the administration of the league in the past, but it's a hard unrewarding job, so it's hard to find someone to do it.



I also believe that the Fantasy League should have different aspects to it. I have most of it in my head and it's partially developed, but I for the life of me can't find the 2 weeks of time to further pursue those ideas. If I have to be super safe with my answer, we'll still have Fantasy Leagues for a while, probably in the same or very similar format to that which we have now.



I'm super glad that Valve decided to do something similar; integrating the fantasy stuff with the game opens up so many opportunities. I've talked to some of the guys that are in charge of it, and they have great ideas for improvement. I feel it's a step in the right direction, and if the Fantasy League ever becomes obsolete, I'll be happy because I took the first step in making Dota 2 something even more entertaining to watch

What is your favourite thing about Sweden?

Bruno: Hmm, it's a tough choice; the food, the women, and the friendliness of people are all great things. I even like the weather here! I can't stand hot weather! But if I had to choose one thing, it's a very personal thing: People here trust the system; you expect things to work and they work. You might disagree with a thing or three, but in general, you can rest easy at night knowing there's no one out there trying to screw you. And that's something that can't be said for the place I come from. Others might call it "boring", but to me it is essential to a certain peace of mind so that you can focus better on the important stuff!

Alright, last question for now. Where do you see yourself in a year's time? Three years time?

Bruno: That's the hardest question for me to answer. I've been unimaginably blessed throughout my life with the fact that life itself has always pushed me in the right direction. All I know is what I love most in the world is solving problems. That's what I know, that's what I do. I started Dota-Academy not because I'm a stat lover, but because I wanted to solve the problem of having more rigorousity in eSports analysis. The path that took me all the way here has had me trying to find solutions to the wildest and most varied sets of problems you can imagine.



Maybe in the future I'll be focusing more on developing games, maybe I'll be focusing on pushing eSports quality a notch ahead (#productionvalue), maybe I'll worry about trying to prove Riemann's Hypothesis, I really don't know! But wherever I go, I'll try to make the field a little bit better.

That wraps up my questions for you. Thanks for taking the time to do this!

Bruno: My pleasure =)

Any final (for now) words to your fans?

Bruno: I'll replicate the words that a friend told me yesterday: I want fans, regardless of age, to go back and think of the first game they ever played. For me it was Frogger, for the Atari 2600. For most of you, it was probably something newer than that. For some great souls, it might've been Pong, the first game ever created. Now look at where we are now. We went from moving 1cm x 1cm pixels, from platformers and ugly 3D graphics, to having games that can be treated as sports, and viewed by millions every day in the world. Imagine how crazy the future will be.

Thanks again.