Rob Zacny's discussions

On the other hand, the last time one of our guys made a big business move, he destroyed the economy of Rhode Island. Read more

Despite the predictable outcome, I’d say you were proved correct! Read more

Yeah, this jumped out at me too, especially since Fnatic had that illegal boost on Overpass a year or so ago. But I think you’re exactly right: no glitch was abused here, so it’s fair play. Though I also got the sense, from one of the commentators, that it’s something that LG might not have been happy to encounter and… Read more

So there’s a few things here. One, Harding is kind of representative of an earlier period in esports / streaming culture. So him getting fired like this for “being himself” is one of those moments where you can actually see a cultural shift happening. Read more

Oh man, that’s a typo! Thanks for catching it. Not a nit-pick, it’s a pretty important part of his performance that round! Read more

Both usages are accepted. I tend to use the plural a lot just out of habit: I have freelanced for years for UK outlets and they prefer the plural for organizations and teams. The thing I mostly worry about is mixing the plural and singular, because my brain is still American and sometimes defaults to singular. Read more

Question for you, because I didn’t follow the seen closely when all that went down: was NA really that much stronger than it is right now? I feel like CS has been the “Fnatic, Na’Vi, and Friends” show for a couple years with VP, NV, and some other teams rotating in and out of the top-tier. Was the gap that much… Read more

I’m just treating it like pro wrestling. Fnatic are awesome to watch during the matches, and then they get on the mike and they’re all great heels. Read more

This is a good point. Riot were content to look the other way until other teams started complaining. Read more

“Oh wow, I think he’s taking Tzeitel... yep, it’s Tzeitel. He’s bringing her around to Lazar and let’s see how this goes for him. DENIED! Tzeitel is NOT having any of that and it looks like Tevye’s going to forfeit this round to Yenta...” Read more

This is an important point, but I also think Sideshow was driving at that. The comp scene has created this walled-garden version of TF2 that predates a lot of later changes. But it sounds like competitive matchmaking is going to supplant that, which means the meaning of “competitive TF2" is going to have to change...… Read more

True, though Overwatch feels very different from TF2. TF2's Quake DNA really shines through, and that might be enough to distinguish it even now. But yeah, it’s definitely pretty late in the day for TF2, now that it’s facing a pretty serious competitor / replacement. Read more

So I generally don’t cover fighting games much because I don’t really know anything about those scenes. I’m trying to learn, but I don’t like writing about things I’m not entirely qualified to talk about about because that’s how dumb mistakes happen. Hell, I have to be careful talking about MOBAs because the level of… Read more

Brutal. Love it. Read more

But this time the result actually WAS a good NA team. The “import talent > ??? > championship” model fails ALL the time in NA. So I don’t think Immortals’ achievements so far are totally meaningless. Read more

See, I dunno how they’ll fare in cross-regional play, because “be cool, play smart” gets you SUPER far in North American LoL. Not so sure keeping it this simple will work well in high-pressure playoffs. Read more

The hype could be more real, yes. Read more

It took me a couple times to see that first kill. Read more

Not at all! This office is apparently a specialist at these kinds of investigations. Back during the Brood War thing, there’s an interview with one of the investigators, who was an older guy, who taught himself a bunch of StarCraft while he was working the case. Esports have been big in Korea for a while, so it’s… Read more

I can’t really comment since I haven’t watched hardly any Brood War, and I adore SC2. But I also understand why Brood War wasn’t replaceable, in part because it is its quirks that make it special. No way could you get away with recreating the bad pathfinding or the limited selection in a modern RTS, but it’s what made… Read more