I have a surprise for you.  Some of you will like it.  Some of you will not.  But it’s time to turn shit on its head.  Expect something crazy during the weekend or shortly after.

In the meantime, here’s IdrA trying to play Starcraft II.  Taste the bold, crisp refreshment that can only come from his tears.

Recommend you watch in high-def.

Where was I those last couple of days?  You’d almost think I got a job on short notice.

This is how bad the economy sucks:

Sony has revealed the contestants that will compete for a spot as a game tester on The Tester, a reality show on PlayStation Network.

The company held an open casting call last September, and on Thursday it revealed the 11 contestants, who range in age from 22 to 36. In addition to the contract with Sony, players are competing for a $5,000 “signing bonus.”

The show, hosted by Meredith Molinari, is produced in collaboration with 51 Minds, creator of The Surreal Life and Rock of Love.  Over the course of eight episodes, the contestants will compete in physical and mental challenges.

Yes: Ten human beings (and Ciji) are competing for five-thousand dollars and the RIGHT to earn a career in gaming’s entry-level soul-crusher.

I can only think of one way hypothetical scenario where this could ever be topped:

Starcraft fan site Teamliquid.net has revealed that American professional gamer Greg “IdrA” Fields will star in his own reality show.

Few details have been revealed about the nine-episode mini-series, but anonymous sources claim the show will follow a set formula: He will argue with people on the internet while simultaneously playing Starcraft.  He will “alt-tab” to discover his “base” has been overrun.  He then calls the opponent a hacker and punches a hole in a wall.

“We had a much different concept for the show with an actual plot structure, but he did this about eight or nine times and then the producers ran out of film,” the anonymous source said.

But hey, I suppose a redux of World Cyber Games: Ultimate Gamer is a solid consolation prize.

Greg, I exert lots of energy to belittle you.  You are a New Jersey native who plays Starcraft for a living.  You accomplished little before getting slotted on a Korean Starcraft team.  As the only foreigner with such status, you are the game’s “great white hope”.  You are the Kimbo Slice of Starcraft.  You have a cult following that wants to believe you are the man.  But whereas Kimbo is a decent person, you are an immature jackass.

After training for an entire year, your expectations were put on display in a best-of-seven with F91, China’s premier Zerg player.  You promised a rout.

(Picture of IdrA added for comic effect.)

“I’m quite confident. Korean Zergs are lightyears ahead of foreigner Zergs, ZvT moreso than any other matchup in the game, I think. TvZ has always been my best matchup as well. I expect to win 6-1 or 5-2, some of the maps are conducive to tricky cheesy builds which he excels at so I could drop a game or two that way. Beyond his general style I don’t know much about his play, don’t think I’ve played him since WWI and haven’t seen any recent replays of his ZvT.”

And boy, was it a rout.  A YouTube commentator summed up your 2-5 loss quite effectively:

Amazing job by F91, he is gonna to be the winner for this series.  He will walk away with a substantial amount of money.  He is going to be walking away with 225 dollars…IdrA, on the other hand, you’ll have  to walk away with 75 dollars, but I’m sure you’ll be happy with that, even if you’re not happy with how badly you got raped right there.

Then Rekrul (that’s “lurker” spelled backwards!), a fellow member of the Starcraft community, unveiled your excuse(s) for losing:

(Picture of IdrA added for comic effect.)

“why are you pretending you know anything about starcraft? raid assault is covered in narrow passages and high grounds and has a very short rush distance through the center, as well as high ground immediately outside the natural. it also has a total of 2 gas expos outside the mains and naturals, both of which are near impossible to defend vs drops…this means that an intelligent zerg will go 2 hatch, my build was designed to take advantage of that and so lost because he went 3 hatch. going 3 hatch is utterly retarded for the reasons i just explained so yes i did lose because he did something dumb.”

…

my point is he won because he took risks and they paid off. congrats to him, but people trying to use [my games with F91] to comment on skill are clueless.

…

and he [F91] is not clever. he simply hopes you dont guess or read which way hes gonna go. opening lurker and hoping your opponent doesnt guess properly if you’re gonna attack or not is not a ‘crazy rush’ or a brilliant strategy. it is a coinflip.

I never have and never will play a video game for money.  But I know an entertainer has to do two of three things: Be classy, be entertaining, be successful.  You can’t do any of these.  I’m not annoyed that you act like a bitter 19-year-old, because I know lots of people who do that.  It’s that you’re a professional gamer who is substantiating the stereotype of the angry, pale-faced white kid who gets their escape through Call of Duty.  Professional gaming does not need this, and until you actually win something, please stop embarassing yourself.

At 2007’s NBA Draft, the New York Knicks desperately needed a point guard for the future. Isiah Thomas, the Pistons’ Hall-of-Fame point guard, was in the final season of his disastrous tenure as General Manager. Rather than drafting Marcus Williams, the highest-rated point guard in the draft, he opted for Renaldo Balkman, a forward who would not have been drafted elsewise. Greg Anthony, a former Knick working as an ESPN Analyst, ridiculed the pick. Thomas retaliated by proving his dumbass label was no fluke.

“Greg Anthony should never ever be in a position to question myself on anything about basketball,” Thomas said. “I do remember the kind of player he was. I’ll leave it at that.

Kevin Arnovitz of Clipperblog epitomized the media’s collective comeback: he ate the moron alive.

“This is a classic corollary of the Joe Morgan/Former Fuckwit Athlete School of Logic. To this day, Morgan refuses even to consider, much less read, Moneyball on the grounds that Michael Lewis never played competitive baseball. Likewise, Greg Anthony has no right to critique Thomas’ draft choice (never mind that this is exactly what ESPN pays him to do) because…because the guy was merely a journeyman role player?”

…

“Bottom line, Isiah, is that anyone has the right to question your personnel decisions because a fucking ouija board is capable of assembling a roster that can win 23 games in the Eastern Conference.”

So why can sports fans grasp what gamers can’t? If you tell the world of online gaming your balls itch, no one will believe you when they get a whiff of your account stats. Anyone following Starcraft II’s development knows this needs to be addressed. Starcraft’s professional gaming scene has unanimously concluded that Starcraft II’s upgraded user interface threatens their flow of disposable income and needs to go. Professional gamer Greg “IdrA” Fields, the last living American to be alive when Starcraft was released, is one of the ugly virgins. When a Warcraft III player argued that user interface upgrades benefit Starcraft II (more accessibility -> larger fan base -> more competition), IdrA responded.

Note: Picture Added for Comedic Effect

“he is a casual gamer, he does not intend to spend 10 hours a day playing a game in order to get good at it. he wants to be able to play sc2 the same way he plays other games(for fun) but get good at it and potentially be a part of this esports scene. what he does not realize is that if you can get good at something playing it casually it will not BE an esport because no one will give a shit if you’re good at something everyone else is also good at. my replies were insulting because, while pretending to want to help esports, he is really attempting to kill it for his own selfish ends.”

Devoting every second of your adult life to a single video game allows you to have an opinion on it. But when you bitch that an amateur is looking to destroy pro gaming in an attempt to profit from it? That means you’re fucking insane.

I will concede the coaching ranks of professional sports are dominated by talents better than me; the NBA’s five winningest coaches played at the pro level. But Bill Russell stands as the lone example of a great basketball player becoming a successful coach. But great basketball minds like Russell are shadowed by the Michael Jordan that drafted Kwame Brown, the Magic Johnson who couldn’t handle coaching, and the Isiah Thomas who destroyed the Knicks organization. This isn’t chess, where knowledge of the game is the more important variable. Like most sports, video game ability relies on hand-eye coordination and reflexes, and those inherited traits do not make you an expert on game design.

This may shock Starcraft players, but your game became the greatest display of professional gaming without a professional gaming scene chirping in the developers’ ears. When Blizzard created Starcraft in 1998, professional gaming did not exist, and serious online play was limited to a community of maphackers playing Warcraft II over Kali. The company’s goal was to make the most enjoyable real-time-strategy experience possible, and the game only went competitive when that was accomplished.

To the talented gamers of the world: you may gain an audience based on your accolades, but if you can’t prove your ability justifies your perch above the plebs, don’t be shocked when people stop listening. If you disagree with me, we can play Guitar Hero sometime and see whose argument is superior.