It’s seven o’clock on a Saturday night and people are gathering in bars in Melbourne city. At The Fringe on little Lonsdale Street, people are coming to watch a match on TV. What could be a regular Saturday night for some takes a new perspective. The game people come to see is a little bit different: it involves two players, two computers and a lot of skills at the videogame StarCraft II. Welcome to a BarCraft.
People watching the live stream of StarCraft II at The Fringe. Photo: Simon Vallenet
The concept of BarCrafts takes its origin in 2011 in the United States, when people started watching StarCraft in bars during the North American Star League. Since then, it became a phenomenon all around the world.
In Melbourne, the website Silicon Sports, which started off as a review blog four years ago, has been organising BarCrafts for more than two years now. Its founder and owner Lalor ‘rezyn8’ McMahon explains how it began.
“With StartCraft II events and tournaments happening around the world, I noticed that there were large congregations of people going out and watching the games together,” Mr McMahon says.
Players during a tournament at the Blizzcon 2013. Photo courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
“I decided to put together an event in March 2012, which took approximately six months of planning before that, and get the very first BarCraft happening from Melbourne.”
Since then, Silicon Sports organised 22 BarCraft events and had numerous tournaments as well as other social events with different games such as League of Legends and Dota.
At The Fringe, it’s all about meeting up with friends, sharing a pizza, drinking some beers and enjoying a good game. Two Melbourne University students, James and Matt, enjoyed their first Barcraft event which took place last Saturday.
“Matt linked me the Facebook page and we wanted to go to a BarCraft for a while but never found one, it’s good to finally go and watch a match here,” James says.
“Once you know a bit what’s going on in the game, it’s very exciting and a lot of fun. I think it’s the same as watching a regular sport. The analogy is drawn a lot but I think it’s a similar experience,” Matt says.
More than just a review blog
The role of Silicon Sports, according to Mr McMahon, is to bring eSports events to the community and highlight the awareness of gaming not just as a pass-time but also as a professional career path.
“Australia doesn’t have the recognition that a lot of other countries have regarding eSports and if we don’t do it then it’s never going to happen,” Mr McMahon says.
