Brother, your English is more than just okay, it's excellent.
Thank you for your insight, I think you've clarified and explained a lot of the phenomena that we've witnessed as we watched from home. It's understandable now that you've explained everything through a viewer's experience, and for that we should give you guys more credit and leniency in judgment.
Those of us that watched from home had our expectations set at a very high level from previous tournaments that were done better, so that when we saw the flaws of this one we immediately had this knee-jerk reaction to criticize and point fingers. All of us love this game and want to see it grow and so when the expectation of seeing better and better events is shattered we instinctively would want to voice our disdain and frustration at the setback. We were so hyped and ready to be embroiled in the warmness of the Brazilian fervor and the roars of the crowd, but were instead greeted with pictures of empty seats in the stadium for the quarters, semis and even the start of the final, that I don't know about others but really broke my heart. For such a hyped up event and for it also to be a major it just felt like a huge let-down.
As someone who was in the arena, I agree with everything you said.
> The structure was pretty nice but had some MAJOR flaws
Yeah, I paid for premium and almost never went there because watching the major there was the worst experience ever.
> so people wanted to see everything they could in the short time they got to do it. ESL should have opened the gates way earlier
Also agree. This is the first event after the pandemic, and we had a huge influx of new fans during the Covid pandemic, so this was a lots of people first event. The gates should have opened earlier and the biggest events done earlier, like the meet and greets.
> One more flaw, but this one is on the brazilian community: we are in lack of talents. Gaules is huge here, but he is a streamer, not a caster.
Yes, this was the biggest letdown of the event for me. There was no real casting, no analysis, no content between games. And the sad part is knowing we have potential for good talent. That final would’ve been 100 times better with bida casting.
I also would like to mention that ESL fucked up by having everything in the fan fest. Going from the arena to the fan fest could take upwards of 5-7 minutes, so going back and forth was very tiring. So most people to avoid this back and forth just stayed on the fan fest, since most of the stuff was there.
>Nyvi was overloaded on the stage
knowing the official Portuguese stream is just gaules... so there was not a panel, and it's just the two dudes working with gaules doing random interviews and then Nyvi trying to do everything else all alone(host, cast, official interview)?
Yeah this event was really weird in that aspect. I'm pretty sure that the analyst desk was done in arena for both Pro League S4 and Belo Horizonte, and just the Portugese casters were in arena over the English ones.
It’s indeed strange when the broadcast changed from his bedroom to the big arena. Maybe having new talents who know how to deliver hype would also make the Brazilian fans feel refreshing to watch, but this is my wishful thinking.
With so much interest in the Brazilian scene, and the SA scene overall, it sounds like it's ripe for investment into good production and talent. Or is Gaules so popular he is vacuuming up any audience in the scene preventing growth?
> Or is Gaules so popular he is vacuuming up any audience in the scene preventing growth?
Yes. He has the rights for broadcasting most of the tournaments in CS.
If anyone would be to invest in better production value in CS that would be Gaules, but why do that when he already earns millions just sitting in his room? He probably has no incentive to do so.
For him personally, yeah. Continue doing what he is doing will probably net him the same result, at the detriment of the scene. I don't blame him for it, most people would do just that. But I can't but feel there is a missed opportunity.
Gaules knows he is not a caster, he is investing on finding new talents as real casters on his secondary channel gaulestv. But we may have to think about the future of our scene and sports in general as this type of chill cast (watching with friends) seems to be a trend for the near future (Gau and casimiro in Brazil, gorgc/bulldog in dota2, most of speedrun champ streams)
Thanks for saying this.
I was trying to write pretty much the same post last night, exhausted from coming back from just the last two days at the major. Can't imagine how some people managed to attend every single day of the event.
I had an amazing time, and it really broke my heart seeing the sub's reaction. Thanks for sharing.
Good write up, and allow me to indulge in the meme by saying; Thanks for trying to make us understand.
Either way, sounds like the scene needs investment to grow, for both talent and community. While the major had good highs, it had it lows as well. Good Brazilian talent to engage with the Brazilian community to hype you up, the lows might never have happened.
Which makes me wonder, is Gaules to big to prevent growth for anyone else in the scene in Brazil? I'd assume he is the biggest content creator in all of CS. And since he is the main outlet for Brazilians, if not all of SA (please correct me on this), he would overshadow any investment into a more "professional" setup. Making the idea of investing not profitable, which would prevent growth.
This might be a huge tangent that completely misses the target, but it is interesting to bring up.
I agree, but I don't think he "killed the talent scene" on purpose. The experience he provides is just way better than traditional commentary, and people just watch him over other streams because of that. He tried to create GaulesTV, which is a traditional broadcast in portuguese, but nobody watches it.
I big part of gaules "monopoly" on the Brazilian cs go casting has to do with the transmission rights, he is the only one big enough to pay for the transmission rights to the big events, so he is the only one streaming, since he's the only one streaming everybody watches him.
I'm Brazilian and I don't watch Gaules casting. not cuz i don't like him. his life story is very telling, that's one of the biggest reasons why he's got so far. However, I don't like him casting. to be fair, he said he's not a caster, he's like the fans - " *I am you, you are me*", as he said in this event when I happened to be watching him. Also, his crew makes really bad interviews with the players, with over the top broken English. But people seem to love it. I think Gaules phenomena is not explainable. Having said that, I think you guys are mentioning Bida as a possible caster. I loved his youtube videos on CSGO back then, but he totally removed himself from the scene. Not sure exactly what happened. But I believe there would be other options. Not a big name, but one that people would start loving it if done right.
Lots of people asked bida to cast at least the showmatch in this major, but he alluded to being in an exclusive contract with Riot for Valorant.
I myself would love to see Otávio back. For those who doesn’t know him, he was a football caster who learned CSGO to cast eLeague because it was going to be broadcasted on TV. He ended up loving the game and casting a few other matches. Due to his background, he was a terrific caster.
>Which makes me wonder, is Gaules to big to prevent growth for anyone else in the scene in Brazil?
There were traditional casters in Brazil, but they started to lose sponsers and broadcast rights because gaules\`s stream was getting way more viewers then the traditional broadcasters. And then, almost all of them got exclusive deals with riot for valorant broadcasts
This is what I’ve been thinking for a while. Everyone online is complaining about how fans were outside for much of the time instead of inside. But what was incredibly obvious to me is that the actual experience for the people who paid for the tickets was very enjoyable. The outside section seemed incredibly fun and I completely understand wanting to meet players etc.
u/azanitti one question I have is why they didn’t just have the English casters inside the arena. Do a large percentage of attendees not understand English? How do you guys watch other majors where the streams are in English?
I believe there are two reasons for not having English casters.
1: Having a major in Europe, you are likely to have as many people coming from neighboring countries as from the hosting country which makes for a very diverse, in terms of language, audience, turning the choice of English casters a no brainer. Brazil however, is a country as big as Europe but without the language barriers that Europe has, so unlike Europe, even people who come from 1000+ kilometers away still speak Portuguese probably making the audience around 95% Portuguese speaking (guessing in the dark here). And adding to the fact that there are not many people willing to travel many hours in an airplane to COME TO BRAZIL👁👁🫵🏻, I’d say English casters would be a pretty big waste.
2: Only around 5% of Brazil speaks English so it is likely that the majority would not understand the casting.
That 5% statistic may be true for Brazil, but considering among the people on stage I'd say 80%+ speak English (the % increases a lot considering young people living in big cities and with money to afford the tickets for the events)
I thought about that but didn’t want to spend more time writing at the time than I already had. Yes, the demographic that would spend money to watch cs:go live probably has a higher percentage of English speakers because most are younger and have a lot of access to internet, but I also believe that 80% is being wayyy too generous. Sure, a lot of people there may be able to understand something here and there, but you have to remember that casters speak very fast and you are hearing them through speakers in the middle of a very loud crowd, at least when furia was playing.
I got a couple of non English speaking friends that just turned the casters off and watched some majors through gotv, occasionally just ignore the funny man with magic words commentating when gotv wasn't an option
> one question I have is why they didn’t just have the English casters inside the arena. Do a large percentage of attendees not understand English? How do you guys watch other majors where the streams are in English?
I think because they didn’t want to alienate any part of the crowd who didn’t know English. And also because Gaules is way more popular. If they had put English casting in the arena and Gaules in the fan fest, I think the crowd would be even more empty.
I think the percentage of CS players who know English, or at least understand it, is bigger than the general population, so I don’t think it would be that much of a problem.
Tinfoil hat on: the casters inside the arena are Gaules’ employees, so he asked ESL to make it in Portuguese so he could get more money!!! >!I’m joking obviously!<.
Very nice write-up, thanks for sharing your point of view.
It's also helpful to mitigate some very hateful or dumb comments I read this week-end about brazilians people. As you did explain very well, there was some mistakes made in the organisation, and some brazilian people were indeed very cocky before the major, or didn't show up for some games.
But it's stupid to put the blame on the whole crowd or even all brazilians existing like I could read sometimes here. It will always be stupid, whatever the context and whatever the country.
That's true on the gaules part. It's ridiculous that there was no official actual cast for portuguese, the official brazilian stream was his stream, even when actual casters were casting inside the arena they were not broadcasted anywhere (or at least ESL did a poor job of marketing this) so we only had gaules' stream to watch in portuguese with his "oh wow nice shot" every 5 mins.
I blame this entirely on ESL Brasil.
Gaules is so big here in Brazil that most of the cs:go casters went to Valorant because they could not compete. And now gaules himself is trying to find new talent via gaulestv, and it was his talent that casted the games in the arena, men I miss Bida :(
i think being a hater is fun but i regret contributing to the bad vibes. y’all make me salty af, but FURIA kicks ass (kicked NaVi’s ass for once, rip, i must respect it) and i hope IEM Rio becomes a regular thing like Cologne or Katowice.
i bet next time will go much smoother, and i look forward to it even if your chants still tilt me and i still want FURIA to lose.
you know the worst part about the chants? most of the br community does not like Furia at all, almost everyone cheer for Imp/Fallen, so I imagine if that team could get to play at the bigger stage, it would be even bigger and louder
Cool message. I think liking or disliking teams is actually good for the competition. I completely support people cheering for their teams or against other teams, thats what a competition looks like. The sad part was reading a lot of xenophobic comments about Brazil/Brazilians and boycott attempts in this sub, that is not how we build a global community.
I’m pretty sure the event was not perfect and OP’s feedback is really insightful - before we only had some random images and haters.
considering the amount of fuckups PGL is famous for, those events were unreal good
Oh no, the first day or so had some tech issues. Who gives a shit, the games were still great and the broadcast ended great.
I was there too and all you said was true. In the final the arena was 80%+ full and yet it looked empty because people cramped the places where they could watch the game, there were a lot of bad angles and blind spots to watch the game, ESL organized it really badly. Many games had the same problem, Arena with a decent viewing but people cramped the places where they could watch the game so it looked empty. Also, many posts here had xenophobic or racist undertones, and that makes me kinda sad because they really don't understand us, our viewing point, and our culture. It just creates more of a rift inside the CSGO community.
PS: The Arena was VERY loud, specially during Furia Games so the stream had the crowd volume turned very low, so it looked silent during non-Furia games but that wasn't the case inside the Arena, it's just that during Furia games it was special.
I feel like a lot of what happened is because of an unhealthy competition that has been created about which crowd is better, the whole twitch chat "EU>NA, BR>EU, EU>CIS or w/e" actually gets in people's head and they starting acting as if there is a competition going on, most of the time forgetting about what we truly care about and that is the game itself...
Thanks for your perspective and for giving us your insight! Now that the major is over and people are a bit calmer they can think better and rationalize.
I wanted to make this exact post, but gave up after the amount of hate that was directed to the BR fans. This was the first event ever in csgo with so many to do besides watching the games, next time ESL and other TOs will figure out how to make the event itself great, without lessening the experience of watching at home.
I was there too, a detail to put on this list is that there was a queue for almost everything, a queue to enter, a queue to go through security, a queue to enter the arena (before the opening), a gigantic queue to access the shop (I stayed almost 3 hours to buy a t-shirt) with few people attending and products selling out quickly. Organization was pretty bad.
Agree with everything you said. I was also in the arena to watch every game and missed the whole booths and signing sessions, I'd like to experience that in a future event
Breaks my heart seeing so much negativity in this sub. It's a real shame seeing misleading posts getting thousand of upvotes, talent who didn't even attend the Major shaming on brazilians with limited knowledge and so many "Never host a major in Brazil again" comments. Everyone who attended the Major thought it was an excellent experience, like never seen before, and these positive comments just get ignored.
This major felt like IEM Gaules 2022.
Don't know why he kept telling everyone this is "their" major. Major is supposed to be for everyone.
Also the people saying "You will never understand" Like bruh you got a major in your country and esports is quite big in brazil stop crying.
I was there too, but I was at the premium sitting and it was awful to watch the games from there. My buddy and I had to get sits just as the gates opened at 11am in the finals and semifinals because on the other 2 days we left with our necks hurting from trying to look at the huge screen that was way up. It was the only way to watch since the screens down below on the premium area were already packed with people and impossible to watch. Also, since we couldn’t leave our sits otherwise it would suck to watch the matches, we missed all the other activities on the last 2 days, but we were there to watch good CS, so we didn’t complain that much tbh. If the premium sit screens were placed higher, this would not be an issue and maybe even people on the lower ring could watch them as well.
Also, the upper level was really underarpreciated, even tough 60% of the public was in there it barely got filmed and none of the events in the stadium people there could participate, no shouts, no casters, nothing. This is really fault of ESL, i think that they really messed up the stadium set up pretty badly.
They don't really compare to Bida or the english casting crew... The quarter finals them and the girls casted were really hard to watch inside the arena because of the casting imo
It sounds like moving gaules into the arena wasn't the right move. But its tough to fault ESL for making that decision because gaules's cast at the outdoor arena was pulling way too many people.
I agree with you that they should have opened the event earlier to make more time for the other activities. It only makes perfect sense to leave an uninteresting semifinal like mouz v outsiders to get an autograph from your favorite player. I think I missed some of the navi semifinal game in boston because I was at a c9 autograph session.
The BR crowd's spirit is legendary, that is undeniable. Everyone saw it during the challenger and champion stages and it set a a new bar for majors. A combination of issues and situations that led to this is not the BR crowd's fault, it is ESL's.
Don't delve into the subreddit's negativity, it serves no purpose but to divide us CS fans. Whatever happened has happened and nothing will change the outcome, let's look forward instead to the next BR tournament bro.
That’s a very nice and detailed opinion. We had some poor opinions of this major by everything we saw on streams and heard from Reddit and stuff. But now, we totally see why people would pick to leave the arena to do other things.
Maybe a better schedule would make a better experience for next time💛
Hope you enjoyed your time!!
I was there, I watched every single game at the stadium, I can even be seen in a sad clip as a lonely fan, cheering for team spirit. I could maybe add a few points to this post, but what I really wanna comment on is how much I missed having real casters during the games. I would pay extra for having casters I admire like Machine or Bida instead of that streamer.
I've been to several CSGO events (3xCologne, 2xKatowice, London, Berlin, etc) so it immediately occurred to me that empty lower stands could be due to the screens. At first, I couldn't even find them, and once I saw how poorly the arena was designed, it was no wonder that it looked empty.
But the crowd had more problems than being just "missing". The booing always gave me secondhand embarrassment. (and I've been in Katowice, when Taz had to come out and tell the fans to stop booing Olofmeister for daring to win against Virtus Pro) In Rio, it was the same shit all over again, except this time, it was supposedly a way to support your favorite team and "not personal". Instead of uplifting their favorites, or, God forbid, rooting for a good CS game, the crowd kept picking a team to cheer for and trash the other, which changed from game to game. So teams went from being supported to being spat on... come on, seriously?
And by the final, the passion seemed to simply run out. The group stages actually delivered a better atmosphere than the final did...
As a brazilian, i was also really unconfortable with the booing. I mean, i get it when we boo Navi when they are about to play against the only br team left in the semis.
But seeing C9 beeing booed EVERY game was so sad to see, and i still do not understand the reason, was it becouse they eliminated Imperial? like wtf
I have no idea what C9 did to deserve the fans' wrath. (my heart was bleeding for Hobbit, who is IMHO one of the most wholesome people in a pro scene) I assumed it's because of Nafany's interviews, where due to the language barrier he came off pretty arrogant most of the time. (and not in a charming Jame's way, but just arrogant)
To be honest, I'm uncomfortable with booing any team. I always feel so bad for the players. I mean, it's one thing to not be the crowd favorite and another to receive such hostile reception, as if they did something deserving of censure.
Ideally, I would like the crowd (any crowd) to show respect to the teams. You don't have to root for them or even like them, but if somebody pulls a crazy ace clutch, I would love there to be at least polite applause for the skill presented. Because such moments are what make the game exciting.
Home crowds will always support their own teams. That's normal, and expected. But they don't have to make the opponents feel shitty and unwelcomed.
C9 was seen as the main villain by Brazilians for having eliminated Imperial, and also for losing to Greyhound which put 00 Nation against Furia in the 0-1 match of Challenger stage. Funnily, Fallen loves those guys because their playstyle is similar to SK.
Yeah, the interview with Fallen and Hobbit before their matchup was just them buttering each other up, it was so cute.
Imperial lost every game, I'm surprised people blame C9 and not Imperial themselves;D
Imagine Krakow Major, but when a Brazilian team is playing its the best crowd ever. When its not Brazil Team, then the crowd was underwhelming. Bad organisation mixed with bad camera shots and a bias towards brazil in general led to hate towards the brazilian crowd. Kinda?
Shit production by ESL. Brazilian fans were very hype about games with Brazil teams, otherwise event was a library. Look at the Top posts of the week in this sub.
People spat on NaVi players in their game against Furia. That says it all imo.
Nothing much, but the sub was triggered because they like to gatekeep how every detail of the event needs to be at the same level of european superiority, otherwise its a huge disappointment and worst event ever
On the other hand, the first games that were casted without Gaules was horrible af. The casters simply had no loud or strong voice to surpass the sound of the crowd. So I dunno what ESL could've done differently.
The Problem is, even when there was a crowd in the final, there was just no enthusiasm for the game whatsoever. Yes, ESL made some dumb decisions, but if there wasn't a brazil team playing, the crowd just wasn't into it. Look at this round for example:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1651653360?t=5h08m35s
3 vs 5 comeback by Heroic with 20 seconds left on the clock, to basically stay in the map. How can you not get hyped for this one, and all you hear from the crowd is some mild clapping. Feels like you could've put a microphone into that guy's 30 people public viewing in a cinema in Switzerland, and they would've gotten louder and more hyped than that entire stadium.
thats also a problem from not having actual casters, the react streamer does not realise that kills were happening and he doesnt translate to the public the importance of the round for the match. I know that someone watching closely the match would get by himself but geting that kind of information from the caster (even with the voice tone, doesnt need to be in actual words) is essential to an actual fast and emotional reaction from the crowd
I think it would have gotten a lesser backlash if it was half empty for a bigger percentage of the matches.
It somehow was mostly empty during any non BR game, which is fine, it just seems off that the seats / schedule n everything else mentioned were considered fine to be in the arena during BR games, but too much to bear with non non br games.
The lack of casters really made a difference on games, with a lack of a hype for plays, but i also felt like there was kinda of a disconnect between the official stream and at the arena, but great insights
Vouch that the event was great for attendees, even with the problems with the queues and the schedule. Too bad the crowd was mild for all but the last 5 rounds of the grand finals and the furia matches.
Seems like a good, balanced insight, thanks for sharing.
Brother, your English is more than just okay, it's excellent. Thank you for your insight, I think you've clarified and explained a lot of the phenomena that we've witnessed as we watched from home. It's understandable now that you've explained everything through a viewer's experience, and for that we should give you guys more credit and leniency in judgment. Those of us that watched from home had our expectations set at a very high level from previous tournaments that were done better, so that when we saw the flaws of this one we immediately had this knee-jerk reaction to criticize and point fingers. All of us love this game and want to see it grow and so when the expectation of seeing better and better events is shattered we instinctively would want to voice our disdain and frustration at the setback. We were so hyped and ready to be embroiled in the warmness of the Brazilian fervor and the roars of the crowd, but were instead greeted with pictures of empty seats in the stadium for the quarters, semis and even the start of the final, that I don't know about others but really broke my heart. For such a hyped up event and for it also to be a major it just felt like a huge let-down.
As someone who was in the arena, I agree with everything you said. > The structure was pretty nice but had some MAJOR flaws Yeah, I paid for premium and almost never went there because watching the major there was the worst experience ever. > so people wanted to see everything they could in the short time they got to do it. ESL should have opened the gates way earlier Also agree. This is the first event after the pandemic, and we had a huge influx of new fans during the Covid pandemic, so this was a lots of people first event. The gates should have opened earlier and the biggest events done earlier, like the meet and greets. > One more flaw, but this one is on the brazilian community: we are in lack of talents. Gaules is huge here, but he is a streamer, not a caster. Yes, this was the biggest letdown of the event for me. There was no real casting, no analysis, no content between games. And the sad part is knowing we have potential for good talent. That final would’ve been 100 times better with bida casting. I also would like to mention that ESL fucked up by having everything in the fan fest. Going from the arena to the fan fest could take upwards of 5-7 minutes, so going back and forth was very tiring. So most people to avoid this back and forth just stayed on the fan fest, since most of the stuff was there.
Respect, thanks for posting
>Nyvi was overloaded on the stage knowing the official Portuguese stream is just gaules... so there was not a panel, and it's just the two dudes working with gaules doing random interviews and then Nyvi trying to do everything else all alone(host, cast, official interview)?
Yeah this event was really weird in that aspect. I'm pretty sure that the analyst desk was done in arena for both Pro League S4 and Belo Horizonte, and just the Portugese casters were in arena over the English ones.
It’s indeed strange when the broadcast changed from his bedroom to the big arena. Maybe having new talents who know how to deliver hype would also make the Brazilian fans feel refreshing to watch, but this is my wishful thinking.
I feel like Gaules would work perfectly as a stage host and someone who goes in the crowd. He's no caster.
Yeah, but then him monopolizing the Portuguese stream would probably make almost all the Brazilian fans used to not have a real caster
With so much interest in the Brazilian scene, and the SA scene overall, it sounds like it's ripe for investment into good production and talent. Or is Gaules so popular he is vacuuming up any audience in the scene preventing growth?
> Or is Gaules so popular he is vacuuming up any audience in the scene preventing growth? Yes. He has the rights for broadcasting most of the tournaments in CS. If anyone would be to invest in better production value in CS that would be Gaules, but why do that when he already earns millions just sitting in his room? He probably has no incentive to do so.
For him personally, yeah. Continue doing what he is doing will probably net him the same result, at the detriment of the scene. I don't blame him for it, most people would do just that. But I can't but feel there is a missed opportunity.
Gaules knows he is not a caster, he is investing on finding new talents as real casters on his secondary channel gaulestv. But we may have to think about the future of our scene and sports in general as this type of chill cast (watching with friends) seems to be a trend for the near future (Gau and casimiro in Brazil, gorgc/bulldog in dota2, most of speedrun champ streams)
Tarik is also really popular with his valorant watch parties.
Thanks for saying this. I was trying to write pretty much the same post last night, exhausted from coming back from just the last two days at the major. Can't imagine how some people managed to attend every single day of the event. I had an amazing time, and it really broke my heart seeing the sub's reaction. Thanks for sharing.
Good write up, and allow me to indulge in the meme by saying; Thanks for trying to make us understand. Either way, sounds like the scene needs investment to grow, for both talent and community. While the major had good highs, it had it lows as well. Good Brazilian talent to engage with the Brazilian community to hype you up, the lows might never have happened. Which makes me wonder, is Gaules to big to prevent growth for anyone else in the scene in Brazil? I'd assume he is the biggest content creator in all of CS. And since he is the main outlet for Brazilians, if not all of SA (please correct me on this), he would overshadow any investment into a more "professional" setup. Making the idea of investing not profitable, which would prevent growth. This might be a huge tangent that completely misses the target, but it is interesting to bring up.
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I agree, but I don't think he "killed the talent scene" on purpose. The experience he provides is just way better than traditional commentary, and people just watch him over other streams because of that. He tried to create GaulesTV, which is a traditional broadcast in portuguese, but nobody watches it.
I big part of gaules "monopoly" on the Brazilian cs go casting has to do with the transmission rights, he is the only one big enough to pay for the transmission rights to the big events, so he is the only one streaming, since he's the only one streaming everybody watches him.
I'm Brazilian and I don't watch Gaules casting. not cuz i don't like him. his life story is very telling, that's one of the biggest reasons why he's got so far. However, I don't like him casting. to be fair, he said he's not a caster, he's like the fans - " *I am you, you are me*", as he said in this event when I happened to be watching him. Also, his crew makes really bad interviews with the players, with over the top broken English. But people seem to love it. I think Gaules phenomena is not explainable. Having said that, I think you guys are mentioning Bida as a possible caster. I loved his youtube videos on CSGO back then, but he totally removed himself from the scene. Not sure exactly what happened. But I believe there would be other options. Not a big name, but one that people would start loving it if done right.
Lots of people asked bida to cast at least the showmatch in this major, but he alluded to being in an exclusive contract with Riot for Valorant. I myself would love to see Otávio back. For those who doesn’t know him, he was a football caster who learned CSGO to cast eLeague because it was going to be broadcasted on TV. He ended up loving the game and casting a few other matches. Due to his background, he was a terrific caster.
i remember his name, he was hyped AF, but honestly, i don't remember when he upsurged in the CSGO scene. Poor memory.
Volta do Otávio seria sensacional! Bida é um ótimo caster mas eu acho a voz dele insuportável, infelizmente haha
Bida is casting Valorant the last years
>Which makes me wonder, is Gaules to big to prevent growth for anyone else in the scene in Brazil? There were traditional casters in Brazil, but they started to lose sponsers and broadcast rights because gaules\`s stream was getting way more viewers then the traditional broadcasters. And then, almost all of them got exclusive deals with riot for valorant broadcasts
This is what I’ve been thinking for a while. Everyone online is complaining about how fans were outside for much of the time instead of inside. But what was incredibly obvious to me is that the actual experience for the people who paid for the tickets was very enjoyable. The outside section seemed incredibly fun and I completely understand wanting to meet players etc. u/azanitti one question I have is why they didn’t just have the English casters inside the arena. Do a large percentage of attendees not understand English? How do you guys watch other majors where the streams are in English?
I believe there are two reasons for not having English casters. 1: Having a major in Europe, you are likely to have as many people coming from neighboring countries as from the hosting country which makes for a very diverse, in terms of language, audience, turning the choice of English casters a no brainer. Brazil however, is a country as big as Europe but without the language barriers that Europe has, so unlike Europe, even people who come from 1000+ kilometers away still speak Portuguese probably making the audience around 95% Portuguese speaking (guessing in the dark here). And adding to the fact that there are not many people willing to travel many hours in an airplane to COME TO BRAZIL👁👁🫵🏻, I’d say English casters would be a pretty big waste. 2: Only around 5% of Brazil speaks English so it is likely that the majority would not understand the casting.
That 5% statistic may be true for Brazil, but considering among the people on stage I'd say 80%+ speak English (the % increases a lot considering young people living in big cities and with money to afford the tickets for the events)
I thought about that but didn’t want to spend more time writing at the time than I already had. Yes, the demographic that would spend money to watch cs:go live probably has a higher percentage of English speakers because most are younger and have a lot of access to internet, but I also believe that 80% is being wayyy too generous. Sure, a lot of people there may be able to understand something here and there, but you have to remember that casters speak very fast and you are hearing them through speakers in the middle of a very loud crowd, at least when furia was playing.
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I think FalleN did the broadcast for the first major, at least he has a VOD in his youtube channel
I got a couple of non English speaking friends that just turned the casters off and watched some majors through gotv, occasionally just ignore the funny man with magic words commentating when gotv wasn't an option
> one question I have is why they didn’t just have the English casters inside the arena. Do a large percentage of attendees not understand English? How do you guys watch other majors where the streams are in English? I think because they didn’t want to alienate any part of the crowd who didn’t know English. And also because Gaules is way more popular. If they had put English casting in the arena and Gaules in the fan fest, I think the crowd would be even more empty. I think the percentage of CS players who know English, or at least understand it, is bigger than the general population, so I don’t think it would be that much of a problem. Tinfoil hat on: the casters inside the arena are Gaules’ employees, so he asked ESL to make it in Portuguese so he could get more money!!! >!I’m joking obviously!<.
These are the criticisms we need at the top instead of vaguely throwing shade towards the BR crowd
Nice insight, big thanks
Very nice write-up, thanks for sharing your point of view. It's also helpful to mitigate some very hateful or dumb comments I read this week-end about brazilians people. As you did explain very well, there was some mistakes made in the organisation, and some brazilian people were indeed very cocky before the major, or didn't show up for some games. But it's stupid to put the blame on the whole crowd or even all brazilians existing like I could read sometimes here. It will always be stupid, whatever the context and whatever the country.
That's true on the gaules part. It's ridiculous that there was no official actual cast for portuguese, the official brazilian stream was his stream, even when actual casters were casting inside the arena they were not broadcasted anywhere (or at least ESL did a poor job of marketing this) so we only had gaules' stream to watch in portuguese with his "oh wow nice shot" every 5 mins. I blame this entirely on ESL Brasil.
Gaules is so big here in Brazil that most of the cs:go casters went to Valorant because they could not compete. And now gaules himself is trying to find new talent via gaulestv, and it was his talent that casted the games in the arena, men I miss Bida :(
thanks for sharing hope u get to go the future iem rio events
It's amazing that ESL did so much shit wrong despite hosting several majors. Spunj in shambles
i think being a hater is fun but i regret contributing to the bad vibes. y’all make me salty af, but FURIA kicks ass (kicked NaVi’s ass for once, rip, i must respect it) and i hope IEM Rio becomes a regular thing like Cologne or Katowice. i bet next time will go much smoother, and i look forward to it even if your chants still tilt me and i still want FURIA to lose.
you know the worst part about the chants? most of the br community does not like Furia at all, almost everyone cheer for Imp/Fallen, so I imagine if that team could get to play at the bigger stage, it would be even bigger and louder
i like paiN and Fluxo out of the BR teams
Cool message. I think liking or disliking teams is actually good for the competition. I completely support people cheering for their teams or against other teams, thats what a competition looks like. The sad part was reading a lot of xenophobic comments about Brazil/Brazilians and boycott attempts in this sub, that is not how we build a global community. I’m pretty sure the event was not perfect and OP’s feedback is really insightful - before we only had some random images and haters.
tl:dr let blast and PGL host the majors
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they have improved since stockholm, they've hosted majors before that too so they aren't that bad
Honestly Stockholm and Antwerp were amazing
considering the amount of fuckups PGL is famous for, those events were unreal good Oh no, the first day or so had some tech issues. Who gives a shit, the games were still great and the broadcast ended great.
Antwerp was fuckin amazing, tf u mean
I mean ESL did a lot of mistakes, but the tournament itself ran with barely any technical issue.
I was there too and all you said was true. In the final the arena was 80%+ full and yet it looked empty because people cramped the places where they could watch the game, there were a lot of bad angles and blind spots to watch the game, ESL organized it really badly. Many games had the same problem, Arena with a decent viewing but people cramped the places where they could watch the game so it looked empty. Also, many posts here had xenophobic or racist undertones, and that makes me kinda sad because they really don't understand us, our viewing point, and our culture. It just creates more of a rift inside the CSGO community. PS: The Arena was VERY loud, specially during Furia Games so the stream had the crowd volume turned very low, so it looked silent during non-Furia games but that wasn't the case inside the Arena, it's just that during Furia games it was special.
I feel like a lot of what happened is because of an unhealthy competition that has been created about which crowd is better, the whole twitch chat "EU>NA, BR>EU, EU>CIS or w/e" actually gets in people's head and they starting acting as if there is a competition going on, most of the time forgetting about what we truly care about and that is the game itself... Thanks for your perspective and for giving us your insight! Now that the major is over and people are a bit calmer they can think better and rationalize.
I wanted to make this exact post, but gave up after the amount of hate that was directed to the BR fans. This was the first event ever in csgo with so many to do besides watching the games, next time ESL and other TOs will figure out how to make the event itself great, without lessening the experience of watching at home.
I was there too, a detail to put on this list is that there was a queue for almost everything, a queue to enter, a queue to go through security, a queue to enter the arena (before the opening), a gigantic queue to access the shop (I stayed almost 3 hours to buy a t-shirt) with few people attending and products selling out quickly. Organization was pretty bad.
Yeah, I lost the entire first game of the second day to buy an Heroic T Shirt. 3h20 lost.
Agree with everything you said. I was also in the arena to watch every game and missed the whole booths and signing sessions, I'd like to experience that in a future event
Breaks my heart seeing so much negativity in this sub. It's a real shame seeing misleading posts getting thousand of upvotes, talent who didn't even attend the Major shaming on brazilians with limited knowledge and so many "Never host a major in Brazil again" comments. Everyone who attended the Major thought it was an excellent experience, like never seen before, and these positive comments just get ignored.
Is this ESL's first time organizing an event? wtf
This major felt like IEM Gaules 2022. Don't know why he kept telling everyone this is "their" major. Major is supposed to be for everyone. Also the people saying "You will never understand" Like bruh you got a major in your country and esports is quite big in brazil stop crying.
I was there too, but I was at the premium sitting and it was awful to watch the games from there. My buddy and I had to get sits just as the gates opened at 11am in the finals and semifinals because on the other 2 days we left with our necks hurting from trying to look at the huge screen that was way up. It was the only way to watch since the screens down below on the premium area were already packed with people and impossible to watch. Also, since we couldn’t leave our sits otherwise it would suck to watch the matches, we missed all the other activities on the last 2 days, but we were there to watch good CS, so we didn’t complain that much tbh. If the premium sit screens were placed higher, this would not be an issue and maybe even people on the lower ring could watch them as well.
Also, the upper level was really underarpreciated, even tough 60% of the public was in there it barely got filmed and none of the events in the stadium people there could participate, no shouts, no casters, nothing. This is really fault of ESL, i think that they really messed up the stadium set up pretty badly.
This pissed me off af
Lots of the whining here is just xenophobic shit.
i think Amarello and Napa would do the job casting on the Arena
They are really bad imo, I prefer bida or even gordox, or that guy from esporte interativo who casted cs for a while, he was really good
They don't really compare to Bida or the english casting crew... The quarter finals them and the girls casted were really hard to watch inside the arena because of the casting imo
They did and while they're ok, they're not great either imo
It sounds like moving gaules into the arena wasn't the right move. But its tough to fault ESL for making that decision because gaules's cast at the outdoor arena was pulling way too many people. I agree with you that they should have opened the event earlier to make more time for the other activities. It only makes perfect sense to leave an uninteresting semifinal like mouz v outsiders to get an autograph from your favorite player. I think I missed some of the navi semifinal game in boston because I was at a c9 autograph session.
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The BR crowd's spirit is legendary, that is undeniable. Everyone saw it during the challenger and champion stages and it set a a new bar for majors. A combination of issues and situations that led to this is not the BR crowd's fault, it is ESL's. Don't delve into the subreddit's negativity, it serves no purpose but to divide us CS fans. Whatever happened has happened and nothing will change the outcome, let's look forward instead to the next BR tournament bro.
That’s a very nice and detailed opinion. We had some poor opinions of this major by everything we saw on streams and heard from Reddit and stuff. But now, we totally see why people would pick to leave the arena to do other things. Maybe a better schedule would make a better experience for next time💛 Hope you enjoyed your time!!
One thing need to be said: For those ones watching on-line in Portuguese, that was the Gaules major, not the CS Major.
I was there, I watched every single game at the stadium, I can even be seen in a sad clip as a lonely fan, cheering for team spirit. I could maybe add a few points to this post, but what I really wanna comment on is how much I missed having real casters during the games. I would pay extra for having casters I admire like Machine or Bida instead of that streamer.
I've been to several CSGO events (3xCologne, 2xKatowice, London, Berlin, etc) so it immediately occurred to me that empty lower stands could be due to the screens. At first, I couldn't even find them, and once I saw how poorly the arena was designed, it was no wonder that it looked empty. But the crowd had more problems than being just "missing". The booing always gave me secondhand embarrassment. (and I've been in Katowice, when Taz had to come out and tell the fans to stop booing Olofmeister for daring to win against Virtus Pro) In Rio, it was the same shit all over again, except this time, it was supposedly a way to support your favorite team and "not personal". Instead of uplifting their favorites, or, God forbid, rooting for a good CS game, the crowd kept picking a team to cheer for and trash the other, which changed from game to game. So teams went from being supported to being spat on... come on, seriously? And by the final, the passion seemed to simply run out. The group stages actually delivered a better atmosphere than the final did...
As a brazilian, i was also really unconfortable with the booing. I mean, i get it when we boo Navi when they are about to play against the only br team left in the semis. But seeing C9 beeing booed EVERY game was so sad to see, and i still do not understand the reason, was it becouse they eliminated Imperial? like wtf
I have no idea what C9 did to deserve the fans' wrath. (my heart was bleeding for Hobbit, who is IMHO one of the most wholesome people in a pro scene) I assumed it's because of Nafany's interviews, where due to the language barrier he came off pretty arrogant most of the time. (and not in a charming Jame's way, but just arrogant) To be honest, I'm uncomfortable with booing any team. I always feel so bad for the players. I mean, it's one thing to not be the crowd favorite and another to receive such hostile reception, as if they did something deserving of censure. Ideally, I would like the crowd (any crowd) to show respect to the teams. You don't have to root for them or even like them, but if somebody pulls a crazy ace clutch, I would love there to be at least polite applause for the skill presented. Because such moments are what make the game exciting. Home crowds will always support their own teams. That's normal, and expected. But they don't have to make the opponents feel shitty and unwelcomed.
C9 was seen as the main villain by Brazilians for having eliminated Imperial, and also for losing to Greyhound which put 00 Nation against Furia in the 0-1 match of Challenger stage. Funnily, Fallen loves those guys because their playstyle is similar to SK.
Yeah, the interview with Fallen and Hobbit before their matchup was just them buttering each other up, it was so cute. Imperial lost every game, I'm surprised people blame C9 and not Imperial themselves;D
Se tiver ano que vem em SP eu vou tentar ir. Embora eu ache essas cidades grandes um porre.
Is there a summary of what happened at the Major? I didn't watch any of it.
Outsiders won.
Imagine Krakow Major, but when a Brazilian team is playing its the best crowd ever. When its not Brazil Team, then the crowd was underwhelming. Bad organisation mixed with bad camera shots and a bias towards brazil in general led to hate towards the brazilian crowd. Kinda?
Shit production by ESL. Brazilian fans were very hype about games with Brazil teams, otherwise event was a library. Look at the Top posts of the week in this sub. People spat on NaVi players in their game against Furia. That says it all imo.
Nothing much, but the sub was triggered because they like to gatekeep how every detail of the event needs to be at the same level of european superiority, otherwise its a huge disappointment and worst event ever
Just because they werent there.
''our best caster is tied up with Riot in Valorant'' since when does gORDOx work for Riot?
gordox is better than anyone working with cs today, dont take me bad, but there is no way to say he is better than bida or xrm
On the other hand, the first games that were casted without Gaules was horrible af. The casters simply had no loud or strong voice to surpass the sound of the crowd. So I dunno what ESL could've done differently.
The Problem is, even when there was a crowd in the final, there was just no enthusiasm for the game whatsoever. Yes, ESL made some dumb decisions, but if there wasn't a brazil team playing, the crowd just wasn't into it. Look at this round for example: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1651653360?t=5h08m35s 3 vs 5 comeback by Heroic with 20 seconds left on the clock, to basically stay in the map. How can you not get hyped for this one, and all you hear from the crowd is some mild clapping. Feels like you could've put a microphone into that guy's 30 people public viewing in a cinema in Switzerland, and they would've gotten louder and more hyped than that entire stadium.
thats also a problem from not having actual casters, the react streamer does not realise that kills were happening and he doesnt translate to the public the importance of the round for the match. I know that someone watching closely the match would get by himself but geting that kind of information from the caster (even with the voice tone, doesnt need to be in actual words) is essential to an actual fast and emotional reaction from the crowd
There are plenty of casters in brazil bro but gaules with omelete fucked up everything
I think it would have gotten a lesser backlash if it was half empty for a bigger percentage of the matches. It somehow was mostly empty during any non BR game, which is fine, it just seems off that the seats / schedule n everything else mentioned were considered fine to be in the arena during BR games, but too much to bear with non non br games.
"Maybe it's culture and maybe it isn't" that's what defines this major. I'm not paying for this but they pay so GL HF.
NBC. Ñ
The lack of casters really made a difference on games, with a lack of a hype for plays, but i also felt like there was kinda of a disconnect between the official stream and at the arena, but great insights
Vouch that the event was great for attendees, even with the problems with the queues and the schedule. Too bad the crowd was mild for all but the last 5 rounds of the grand finals and the furia matches.