The future of television?

June 4, 2011 9:15 AM

Warp Prism is a slickly-designed website that makes it easier for you to watch 'eSports'. With streams for all the popular spectator games, including Major League Gaming (broadcasting live from Columbus today), it makes it easy to switch between streams, and even includes picture-in-picture and embedded chat support.
posted by empath (15 comments total)

If "slick" means "can't tell what might be a link," I'm right there with ya. It also takes ages to load.

Note to others, eSports = video games & poker.
posted by rhizome at 9:20 AM on June 4, 2011

This is interesting, but I can't quite understand what I'm watching. These are all live streams of justin.tv? So there's 100s of live videogame feeds broadcasting 24x7? Or are these recordings?
posted by Nelson at 9:30 AM on June 4, 2011

AFAIK, these are mostly justin tv streams. It started off just doing starcraft streams, but it's been adding more and more.
posted by empath at 9:34 AM on June 4, 2011

johnderco, what's with the random link?
posted by NoMich at 9:57 AM on June 4, 2011

It's spam.
posted by carter at 10:01 AM on June 4, 2011

@nelson: yes these are all live streams of people playing or commentating videogames.

several people can regularly attract 5-20k viewers, which apparently yields them upwards of $100/hr in advertising revenue. yes this is the future of television...
posted by paradroid at 10:11 AM on June 4, 2011

yes this is the future of television...

In that case, then, the future can go fuck itself.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:01 PM on June 4, 2011

It's better than watching golf.
posted by ryoshu at 3:56 PM on June 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Did anyone here watch much of TSL? The finals were awesome. That was the most fun I've ever had watching a competitive event.

(As I type this, literally, there's a massive burst of screaming and honking out my window. Everybody is watching some Stanley's Cup thing, I think it's a basketball game or something.)
posted by neuromodulator at 7:25 PM on June 4, 2011

(Errr, I'm in Vancouver and they just scored, was the context missing from that).
posted by neuromodulator at 7:25 PM on June 4, 2011

Why the hell is ESPN in China showing MLB and not the Stanley Cup? I could understand if it was the French Open, but a non-major baseball game?

Grrrr!
posted by arcticseal at 1:07 AM on June 5, 2011

You know, the first few times I heard mention of e-sports I thought it was pretty stupid. Who'd want to watch that? But lately I've been coming around to the concept.

After all, isn't NASCAR one of the most popular sports in the US? F1 is one of the world's most popular sports. Those aren't really primarily physical activities either, and people watch them.
posted by atrazine at 1:33 AM on June 5, 2011

For someone who likes esports, warpprism is great. It is not meant to introduce or represent esports in any way. It is like having an easy way to go to one place and see a list of all current baseball, hockey, football, and basketball games that are broadcasting at the moment, and flip between them, plus PiP, all with one interface.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2011

yes this is the future of television...

In that case, then, the future can go fuck itself.

Yeah, i prefer TV like it is now, where the corporate overlords get to decide exactly what I want to see, and little guys have no chance of making a name for themselves on pure merit. It makes me feel so happy when I have to navigate bizarre blackout rules that mean I can't watch a particular game because I am in a particular region of the country.
I love the drama of owners the pro leagues getting in fights with players, resulting in the fans getting the shaft.

At the moment, the esports scene puts much more control in the hands of the fans than any other "sport" I know of. And yes, i put "sport" in quote to appease those who think sports must involve a ball. But as long as nascar and shooting are considered sports, then pro video games should be sports as well.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 4:48 PM on June 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

If "slick" means "can't tell what might be a link," I'm right there with ya. It also takes ages to load.

The interface mirrors the starcraft UI. If you have played starcraft, then you should have no trouble. As the target audience is in fact SC fans, this is probably OK. Even without that knowledge though, is there a specific task you had trouble executing?
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 4:52 PM on June 5, 2011