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I've never had any interest in watching team sports, or broadcast sports. I like watching a few things in the Olympics, or in the X-games. But I'm really not a basket/foot/soccer/base-ball person.
Last weekend, my brothers told me about the Awesome Games Done Quick marathon being livestreamed on the internet. For those who don't know it, It's a bunch of people playing old to semi-old video games as quickly as possible. It's called speed running. There is a community of serious practitioners and fans, there are competitions to be the world record holder on particular games, and there are channels dedicated to it and recordings of runs on Youtube.
The marathon consisted of some individual players on their own and some head-to-head contests to see who could finish, say, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link or Yoshi's Island, first. Through all of it, there was a live commentator explaining why the players were doing what they did, the crazy timing of the glitches that some of them were exploiting and how they affected the game, and how much time certain strategies saved over others. I realized, some way in to one of the games I watched with Tim, that it was a bit like watching a broadcast sports even with live commentary.
And while I still can't see myself ever sitting down to watch a professional sports event unless I'm doing muting the game on Super Bowl Sunday to watch the commercials, I may have a little more appreciation for what those who *do* watch such things get out of them.
And I'm kind of hoping that the next time there's a marathon, I might find a few other people to bring some snacks and gather around a screen to watch some of the games I'm most interested in.
Did I mention this marathon is a regularly recurring event that benefits charity? This time they raised over half a million dollars for cancer research. Not bad for a bunch of geeks watching geeks playing video games, huh?
Last weekend, my brothers told me about the Awesome Games Done Quick marathon being livestreamed on the internet. For those who don't know it, It's a bunch of people playing old to semi-old video games as quickly as possible. It's called speed running. There is a community of serious practitioners and fans, there are competitions to be the world record holder on particular games, and there are channels dedicated to it and recordings of runs on Youtube.
The marathon consisted of some individual players on their own and some head-to-head contests to see who could finish, say, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link or Yoshi's Island, first. Through all of it, there was a live commentator explaining why the players were doing what they did, the crazy timing of the glitches that some of them were exploiting and how they affected the game, and how much time certain strategies saved over others. I realized, some way in to one of the games I watched with Tim, that it was a bit like watching a broadcast sports even with live commentary.
And while I still can't see myself ever sitting down to watch a professional sports event unless I'm doing muting the game on Super Bowl Sunday to watch the commercials, I may have a little more appreciation for what those who *do* watch such things get out of them.
And I'm kind of hoping that the next time there's a marathon, I might find a few other people to bring some snacks and gather around a screen to watch some of the games I'm most interested in.
Did I mention this marathon is a regularly recurring event that benefits charity? This time they raised over half a million dollars for cancer research. Not bad for a bunch of geeks watching geeks playing video games, huh?
