Professional Gaming

Question

Since this is a Q&A site that focuses on gaming I've always wondered whether or not questions about professional gaming are on topic. Now I'm not talking about the "Pro Gamers" with a high ranking in a certain game but more about people that really make a living out of gaming (gaming = playing games. I'm not talking about concepts and development which is obviously off-topic). This could be about streaming/Let's Plays, fan merchandise, tournaments, sponsorship or even just game-testing.

Some example questions:

• "How can I participate in the Starcraft 2 World Championship" (Tournaments)
• "What can I do to make my videos more interesting for the mainstream" (Entertainment)
• "On which gameplay aspect should I take a closer look in this Call of Duty alpha?" (Game-testing)
• "I want to participate in the LCS. How do I find a good sponsor for my League of Legends team?" (Sponsorship)

Of course I know that professional gaming isn't a common job but with E-sports gaining more and more popularity the scene is growing.

Answer 1

I'd say those are the respective best SE sites for your questions:

• Tournaments: Arqade
• Video making: https://video.stackexchange.com/
• Playtesting: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/
• Sponsorship: ...your lawyer.

Please do review, however, the respective help centers for what's okay and what's not okay to ask on each site — in particular the "What types of questions should I avoid asking?" section.

• "How can I participate in the Starcraft 2 World Championship" is an objective, actionable question that fits well on Stack Exchange.
• "What can I do to make my Videos more Interesting for the Mainstream" is way too generic (much depends on the actual game) and open ended, without one true answer. You'll have to come up with some answers yourself (shorter videos? just highlights? include voice comms? enemy POVs?); you can then ask for help on how to implement each of your decisions.
• "On which gameplay aspect should I take a closer look in this Call of Duty Alpha?" (Game-testing) is way too specific; the organizers of the Call of Duty playtest will tell you what to focus on (and it's probably not going to be an answer you will have the liberty to share with the public in general.) Questions about specific aspects of playtesting would be better fits.
• "I want to participate in the LCS. How do I find a good sponsor for my League of Legends team?" is probably just a bad fit with the network. It depends on your team, what you're willing to bring to the table, what the sponsors are willing to offer, negotations, contracts, legalese, NDAs, NDAs on the NDAs... it would very technically be on topic, but I don't see Arqade being able to answer this in a helpful fashion.

Answer 2

There's only one question here that falls into our core expertise. Remember, we are about playing games. There's lots of things that could be somewhat related, but don't really work well here. To take your questions in order:

• "How can I participate in the Starcraft 2 World Championship" - This is the only one I think would be on-topic. It's not quite about actually playing, but it's close enough, I think.

• "What can I do to make my Videos more Interesting for the Mainstream" - This is completely subjective. Everyone's going to have a different opinion, and there's no way to make this Good Subjective. There's nothing objective to point to, no expertise to leverage. This would be, at best, incidental knowledge.

• "On which gameplay aspect should I take a closer look in this Call of Duty Alpha?" - This also is completely subjective. Any answers would be popularity contests, and that makes this a question that would get hammered here. We deal with objective, answerable questions about playing games.

• "I want to participate in the LCS. How do I find a good sponsor for my League of Legends team?" - This is again incidental knowledge. It has nothing to do with playing games. We might be able to answer it, but our focus doesn't run to finding sponsors, or what makes a good one. Any answer we give isn't going to be very helpful.

I saw that you started an e-sports proposal that got closed as a duplicate of us. If you're looking to attempt to re-open it, you need to prove that the questions aren't on-topic here, and to prove that there's enough interest for it separate from straight gaming. So far, you've got one on-topic, two subjective, and one outside our expertise.