the play of others. Blizzard Entertainment provides an online matching system, called “the ladder,” that players use to identify random practice partners. But players also take the initiative to seek out volunteer coaches and teachers in order to benefit from a more personal form of learning. Day[9]TV reflects this peer-supported ethos by hosting forums where players exchange knowledge and tips, allowing for community chat during the live shows, and inviting player suggestions for show content and contributions of game replays. While Sean Plott, a 25-year-old white male from California, is the personality and expert behind the show and the site, his approach and demeanor reflect a welcoming, unpretentious community ethos as he continuously seeks input and feedback from the crowd of StarCraft enthusiasts and experts.
StarCraft II is designed by Blizzard Entertainment so that players can get involved in content production, sharing, and curation. The Team Liquid online forum is an important participatory hub for these content producers. The site serves as a repository for various digital media such as articles, forum and wiki posts, and weblinks that cover a wide range of competition strategies. Apart from sharing core content related to the StarCraft II metagame, Team Liquid also acts as an information hub for the community where members publicize local activities to the rest of the community members. Younger players can also use Team Liquid to form open-membership and cross-generational practice partnerships so that they are exposed to more experienced players as personal coaches. According to a Team Liquid survey, 62 percent of its users are students, while 24 percent are employed full time (Team Liquid 2012).
Among all production activities, forum posting and article writing are perhaps the most accessible for players. New York–based Waxangel, in his early 20s and the team’s chief editor, told us that writing is one sure way to get players involved in the community. Any Team Liquid participant can post to its forum, which is moderated only for offensive content. It also has a writing team. The only difference between general forum posters and Team Liquid writers is that the writing team tends to write longer articles and also receives peer support from Waxangel and his editorial team. Some of these articles analyze strategies, while others report on gaming events or introduce professional gamers.
Waxangel hand-picks his writers by inviting forum posters who exhibit relevant aptitude. He describes an important hallmark of a good Team Liquid writer as “someone who is very passionate at esports, because a guy who’s not that good at writing technically but has a lot of passion for esports, you can definitely tell that in his writing.” Waxangel welcomes writers such as Day[9], who already has an illustrious reputation in StarCraft II, to publish anytime.
Occasionally, StarCraft II gamers find career opportunities in professional gaming if they put in years of effort in learning and practicing with other equally dedicated players. Likewise, content producers who attain high levels of expertise in writing articles or broadcasting events may also find employment opportunities in the gaming industry. For example, the shows on Day[9]TV, which began as a passion project and online daily TV show devoted to the art and strategy of StarCraft II, became a full-time job for Sean Plott.
Learner Story
Mona Zhang is a 22-year-old Asian American college student at Princeton University and the female founder and leader of the Collegiate Starleague.2 Mona is also a master level player, meaning that she is among the top 2 percent of players in the United States. Mona is both a powerful player and a community leader—a strong role model for other female gamers.
As with most active StarCraft participants, Mona’s experience with computer games started at an early age. She first started playing StarCraft when she was 11 years old because her brother was playing it, and she wanted to do the same. Her relationship with her brother had always been close, and she was motivated to emulate his interests. Besides StarCraft, she and her brother shared an interest in console games, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Tiberian Sun. And like some other gamers, Mona started by playing games casually, for example, doing comp stomp (beating computer opponents) and playing for fun. Later, she found videos of professional gaming events on the openly networked internet and fell in love with professional competitions.
Mona elaborated on how difficult it can be for young women to discover their own interest in things that are stereotypically male:
There’s always that issue of access. You don’t have girls saying, “Oh, video games, I should play them because they’re cool.” What I mean by that is that a lot of girls, when they’re brought up, they basically do things that their peers are interested in or that their parents give them access to. Because no one tells me that, I’m not going to say, “Hi mom, get me an N64.” That’s what my brother did because he was like, “Oh, all my guy friends are getting N64s. Mom, get me an N64.” Otherwise, girls are only exposed to things like shopping. Your peers are really interested in shopping. Your peers are really interested in books and “hanging out.” It’s very different, and because of the different exposure that you are given, I feel like it’s more difficult to learn how to read a game or learn how to play a game.
Mona suggests that young women ask for things that their peers and parents think are culturally appropriate. If her brother had not asked for video games, she would probably not have had the opportunity to play them.
Having access to video games at home is not the only influencing factor in Mona’s development of a geeky interest. She also met like-minded geeky peers in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at her high school. IB programs expose students to mathematics, science, and critical thinking, which may explain why Mona found many other geeky kids to hang out with. “A lot of us were nerds,” she said. There, she met three other female friends with similar backgrounds—they had geeky siblings and were interested in StarCraft. They became best friends. Playing competitively online for the first time is a nerve-racking experience for all StarCraft players. Mona and her friends supported each other, socially and emotionally, by cheering each other on until they became more confident. At school, they beat the StarCraft boys in their class.
Mona speculated that had she not had geeky siblings and peers in her early life, she would have found it difficult to pick up video gaming in college. She provided us with an example by describing expert keyboard manipulation. “What is WASD? You move using those controls in a game. If you only use your computer to check your email, it’s incredibly difficult for females to get into the gaming scene.” Mona told us that many college women she had met faced similar difficulties. Gaming skills are more complex than simply controlling your mouse to click on icons. Avid gamers develop fine keyboarding skills, such as clicking on the correct keys without even looking at the keyboard, through their frequent usages of common game controls such as WASD. These gamers can pick up new games and become good at them much more easily than others can.
At Princeton University, Mona remained deeply interested in StarCraft and looked for like-minded students to form a StarCraft II club. She describes how she first recruited participants, joking that a shared geeky Asian identity helped prime the pump. “If I saw an Asian guy who kind of looked Korean, who looked like he might know what StarCraft was, I would ask and be like, ‘Hey, we should start a StarCraft team.’ And so I met a lot of people through that process.”
After she found a handful of students at Princeton who were interested in StarCraft II, the group began organizing matches with other schools:
We were thinking, “Hey, in two years, if we get 20 schools we will be happy.” What happened was, the Princeton students—I started trying to meet the Princeton team—and someone from MIT who was my friend, he said, “Hey, we play StarCraft here, let’s have a show match.” We thought it was great fun so we made a hype video about it and we broadcast it.
After that, people started emailing us. We did most of this through Team Liquid [a popular StarCraft community site]. People were like, “Hey, we want to play too.” At first, we were just going to do show matches every week, and I would try to organize
