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Ill Beat U After Class!

Instrumental Play and Videogame Coaching Abstract
Players are now able to hire videogame coaches to become better at playing. Many studies have shown that players of competitive games such as FPS, MMORPG and RTS games take gaming very serious and also want to become better at playing games. In contrast to play philosopher Huizingas notion of play as not-serious this essay tends to describe a shift in such games towards a more serious play style: that of instrumental play, a term used by game researcher T.L. Taylor. This essay tries to explore how instrumental play, as a more serious form of Huizingas play, and videogame coaching are related. This relation can only be understood in the cultural context in which these games are played.

Keywords
Serious Gameplay, instrumental Play, Competitive games, Videogame Coaching

B. C. A. Post 3291111 Rules of Play D. B. Nieborg New Media & Digital Culture 7 2011

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The Rise of the Videogame Coach

Within the communities of competitive games opportunities have now arisen to invest real currency into the development of ones gaming abilities: it is nowadays possible to hire a coach to become better at playing games. Professional StarCraft II (2010) and League of Legends (2009) players offer their skills as coaches to make you a better gamer. As the StarCraft II coaches of gosucoaching.com put it: Our ultimate goal is to provide you, the customer (student) with a satisfying coaching experience -- one where you can apply what you have learned after each session immediately toward improved game play. (gosucoaching.com 2010) Websites such as Gamercoach.com also promote the importance of being good at games. Their homepage states that Just because you can afford the toys, doesn't mean you know how to use them (Gamercoach.com 2011), implicitly focusing on the importance of being able to use a toy properly, of being good with it, of being good at playing games. The increasing importance of being good at gaming can also distilled from academic research. An increasing amount of players of competitive online games such as first person shooters (FPS) like Counter-strike (2002) ,massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft 1(WoW) (2004), and real-time strategy games such as StarCraft II (2010) and League of Legends (LoL) (2009) playing is not just to have fun. Competitive games are also being played because players want to win (Myers 2007, appendix 1), to have a strong avatar (Eklund & Johansson 2010), or even to be the best at it (Taylor 2003, Prax 2010). As Rambusch et al. notice: at first the game is played for fun *+, but after some time it is taken more seriously (2007, p. 159). It is not playing itself that is satisfying anymore; it is being successful, winning the game. However, one does not turn into a successful player easily. Game researcher T.L Taylor (2003) has noticed that these ambitious players often have a strong focus on efficiency, skill improvement and achieving goals and has called this play style instrumental play. Gamers go through great extend to win: Players of Counter-strike practice hours and hours and buy expensive hardware to be able to play well (Rambusch et al. 2007) and WoW players cancel parties to be able to raid dungeons (Eklund & Johansson 2010, Prax 2010). Successful Gaming is becoming more serious and more important. Since both instrumental play and videogame coaching seem to focus on the importance of becoming successful players, I want to focus on the following question: Can taking videogame coaching lessons be seen as a form of instrumental play? I.e. how does videogame coaching relate to instrumental play? To be able to answer this question, I will first define instrumental play itself focusing on the players relation to the activity of gaming and relate it to ordinary play, using Huizingas definition of play.
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It is questionable if WoW is a competitive game since it includes many elements that are not competitive by nature. However WoW is often a part of eSports tournaments, focusing on Player versus Player competitions.

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Second, we must define video coaching. To continue, we must look at how both instrumental play and videogame coaching can be placed into the context of competitive gaming. Ultimately, instrumental play and video game coaching must be compared to each other. To conduct this study, I will focus on other academic research on similar matters, and look at websites which can be found within the context of both videogame coaching and instrumental play: that of competitive games. Furthermore, I will draw on an in-depth interview on StarCraft II coaching I conducted with a professional StarCraft II Coach Geoff iNcontrol Robinson.

Instrumental Play
In her research on power gamers playing the MMORPG EverQuest Taylor (2003) has found that some players play in ways we typically dont associate with notions of fun and leisure (p. 301). As Taylor continues to set the power gamer apart from the casual gamer, she notes that the former group goes through very hard work to achieve their goals. It was not the activity itself that became the measure of fun but the possibility for success that pushed them forward (p. 303). The approach these gamers take on to play games is what Taylor has coined instrumental play. This model of plays is characterized by 1) efficiency: seeing the game as a problem, or a black box, which can be taken apart and solved, 2) dynamic goal setting: working very hard to achieve goals, 3) game structure knowledge: figuring out how games and their dynamics work, 4) technical and skill proficiency: improving skills by using technology such as add-ons, 5) community knowledge: using websites and other sources which contain information about the game, and 6) friendship networks: using in-game friends as tools to collectively and individually achieve goals. Gamers, such as power gamers, want to be the best and go through great extends to be the best: the simple idea of fun gets turned on its head by examples of engagement that rest on efficiency, (often painful) learning, rote and boring tasks, and the like (p. 310). Later studies on gaming activities emphasize similar findings: Fanatic Counter-strike players, for example, commit hours and hours of practicing and buy expensive headsets that help them in their gaming activities (Rambusch et al. 2007). WoW players go through boring, long-lasting processes that almost feel more like work than play (Taylor 2003, Williams et al. 2006, Yee 2006a), or skip parties or study to be able to raid (Prax 2010). Players of both these games use additional software (Taylor 2003, Williams et. al 2006, Rambusch et. al 2007). However, all the aforementioned activities can make the difference of being a good at a game or not. To live up to such serious commitments sometimes transcends fun during play, but achieving the goal is more satisfying for these players. Instrumental play thus seems to be a very serious type of gameplay.

Play and Instrumental Play

Many researchers have emphasized the seriousness attitude players can have towards playing games and when engaged in them: from social and cultural perspectives (Taylor 2003, Williams et al. 2006, Yee 2006a, Rambusch et al. 2007, Prax 2010, Eklund & Johansson 2010, McGonigal 2010/2011), from economical perspectives (Castronova 2001, Dibbell 2003/2007) and from philosophical perspectives

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(Riezler 1941, Rodriguez 2006). However, in the first edition of the academic journal Games and Culture Joost Raessens has pointed out that digital technologies seem to stimulate playful goals or the play element in culture (2006, p. 2), referring to philosopher and play-expert Johan Huizingas work on the phenomenon of play, which originates from 1938. Seriousness and play do not always seem to go very well together (Riezler 1941, Rodriguez 2006), and seriousness and fun seem to share the same problem. If play is fun (Huizinga 1949) seriousness cannot be fun. Johan Huizinga (1949) himself has argued that, although to our way of thinking, play is the direct opposite of seriousness [and that] play can be very serious indeed (p. 5). He also notes that the contrast between play and seriousness is always fluid (p. 8). However, when summing up the characteristics of play, he claims that play is an activity standing quite consciously outside ordinary life as being not serious, but in the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly (p. 12). Later in his work he claims again that all play *+ can be performed in the most perfect seriousness (p. 18), stressing that we can think of playful activities as something serious, but we also know that we are playing. In his approximation of Huizingas work new media theorist Hector Rodriguez (2006) notes that play makes sense to the player. Furthermore, he claims, anything playful may become serious. However, we could argue that seriousness also makes sense to the player and that, just as Huizinga (1949) shows in his work, serious matters can become very playful. Neither Huizinga nor Rodriguez comes is able to clearly opposition play and seriousness and set them apart as two different experiences. However, Rodriguez points out that play is on the whole psychologically or socially efficacious only to the extent that players derive satisfaction from it (2006). Here can we see a difference, because satisfaction is clearly a different experience than fun. Furthermore, this shifts the focus from what play is to question of why we engage in playful activities. We should not look at play itself as something serious, but look at the way in which we derive satisfaction from playful activities: what do we want from playing? What do we have to do to gain satisfaction from playing? How can playing be satisfying? As Taylor argues, players that use instrumental play to approach games do not derive satisfaction from playing itself which is in Huizingas work (1949) a fun activity but from the possibility to be a good gamer, i.e. the possibility to be successful, to win. Instrumental play does thus not resolve around play as a fun and, furthermore, instrumental play can be seen a more serious approach towards play activities, since it often takes a lot of effort to become successful and feel satisfied.

Videogame Coaching
Videogame coaching is a rather new phenomenon and is an activity in which good players get paid (or not) to teach other, usually less skilled, players to become better at playing games. However, some coaches also put online videos on demand (VoDs) which are usually free to watch. Videogame coaching is widely available for a few of the most popular competitive games such as StarCraft II and League of Legends, but also for a huge variety of other games (see gamercoach.com). Videogame coaching can be seen as a job, but we could also focus on it as an aid to become better at playing and thus increase the possibilities for success.

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From an economic perspective, the coaches gaming knowledge or what Consalvo (2007) has called gaming capital now becomes a commodity, worth money. It is therefore that it can be related to professional gaming (pro-gaming): earning a living with gameplay activities. Increasing amounts of StarCraft II and LoL players are giving coaching lessons nowadays, in addition to the other activities they engage in. An example is StarCraft II pro-gamer and Coach Geoff iNcontrol Robinson, who in a 2011 interview (appendix 1) claimed he had coached about three- to four thousand hours over the last two years, coaching for about two to three hours per day. His current rate is 80 dollars per hour (gosucoaching.com 2011). A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation brings the profit up to between $12.000 and $16.000 dollars per year. Besides seeing videogame coaching as a job, we can also look at it from a more cultural perspective, by relating it to eSports, i.e. an area of sports activities in which people develop and train mental or physical abilities in the use of information and communication technologies (Wagner 2006). Wagners definition is not so much focused on the competition that is often linked with eSports, but focuses on the development of a certain skillset to become good at something and eventually heighten the chances of success. Coaching is something we see in ordinary sports, such as football and tennis as well. In the world of professional football coaches get paid substantial amounts of money to coach teams or individuals and raise the possibilities for success, i.e. winning tournaments, leagues and matches, by stimulating the players, keeping them together as a team, motivating them to push themselves to the limit and sharing with them all the knowledge they have about the sport. In this way, coaching can be defined as unlocking a persons potential to maximize their own performance (Whitmore 2009, p. 10). Within the context of videogames we can see it as an activity in which usually two (or more) persons, a coach and a gamer (student), work on improving the gameplay and experience of the gamer. This focus on improvement also echoes in Wagners definition of coaching. Coaching is very much about becoming better.

The Context of Instrumental Play and Videogame Coaching

We should note that the changes towards a more serious stance towards gaming, a stance which advocates good performances over fun during play, should always be seen within the cultural context it lives. This is so because in gaming culture, games are not just played, they are talked about, read about, cheated, fantasized about, altered, and become models for everyday life (de Castell & Jenson 2003). Besides that games are not played in a cultural vacuum (Consalvo 2007, p. 4). Therefore we should note that the changes towards a more serious stance towards gaming, a stance which advocates good performances over fun during play, should always be seen within the cultural context, since games are not played in a cultural vacuum (Consalvo 2007, p. 4). Furthermore, Kline et al. (2003) have shown that gaming experience, besides cultural forces, is also constituted by economic which they call marketing and technological forces.

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Placing gaming in a broader cultural context it has been seen as something very fruitless. In 2003 serious play theorists Suzanne de Castell and Jennifer Jenson have pointed out that gaming has always been described often by people who did not play games themselves as an unpopular culture: For those who do not actually play games *+, games represent at best a childish pleasure long since left behind, and at worst a threat to every position on the home front: children obsessed and bewitched, partners distracted and preoccupied, money spent, and time wasted (de Castell & Jenson 2003). Being good at games was seen as something useless as games were themselves seen as something useless. This is partly enforced the media coverage of games, which has been defining gaming in relation to ethics and violence for a long time (Ibid). However, this view is changing. Increasing amounts of people are nowadays playing games (Juul 2010, McGonigal 2010/2011). Furthermore, gaming is slowly becoming a positive activity which can be fruitful and fun for the gamer (see McGonigal 2011). Besides that, being good at playing games is also becoming increasingly important to growing amounts of actively involved gamers. Huge amounts of people gather around, for example, professional Counter-strike (Rambusch et al. 2007) or StarCraft II players to see them play. The Dreamhack2 2011 League of Legends final had 200.000 (!) viewers watching the match on a live stream. Professional gamers are praised and paid for their gaming skills, as they win money at tournaments, are being sponsored by companies 3and have thousands of fans watching them play via live streams on www.justin.tv and www.own3d.tv, to enjoy the competition and learn from the best. Being good at competitive games such as StarCraft II and League of Legends is not seen as a waste of time anymore and the developing of ones skills as a gamer seems to become more and more important.

Instrumental Play and Videogame Coaching

We can so far define instrumental play as a more serious, but also an increasingly popular approach within competitive gaming. As Taylor has derived from player statements, instrumental play is characterized by a couple of qualities (see above), which can be compared to the activity of videogame coaching. In this section I will focus on a couple of statements about videogame coaching uttered by Robinson (Appendix 1) and see how these statements relate to instrumental play. Talking about the content of his coaching lessons Robinsons stated that: I wanna work on everything And then with those students, then I just keep tabs of... what weve worked on, what weve talked about, what they need to continue to work on. (p. 12) Robinson is here talking about the different manners in which a players skills can be improved, which of course relates to skill proficiency. Furthermore we can derive a form of dynamic goal setting from this,
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A large LAN-party which also includes eSports activities. Robinson even plays in a commercial for hardware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UZxcXw90Zo

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as Robinson works on different subjects with his students. Last and not least is that such statements imply a certain level of game structure knowledge that is transmitted towards the student and created by the student as he is engaged in gaming activities with a clear focus on gaining experience in different game situations. Talking about his position as a coach Robinson uttered two specifically interesting things: For anybody theres hobbies that there are people better at, its their profession. So it makes sense to pair yourself alongside them and kind of just channel their knowledge of their abilities to ehm get better for yourself. (p.11) I want you to use me as an ongoing resource, so I try to create myself as a social network for them to connect to other players, but also if they have a question. (p. 12) The latter statements focus more on the relation of the player to other players, such as the coach. Subdividing these statements within the qualities of instrumental play these statements would best fit under the categories community knowledge and mostly friendship networks. Players using an instrumental approach within competitive games appropriate collective knowledge from websites and VoDs. Robinson is a player that attributes to this collective database of game capital by providing other players with VoDs. Furthermore, Robinson provides the player with a peer to pair alongside with; showing that videogame coaching also uses friendship networks. I find for the short term its best to ask the student what they have the most difficult time dealing with and then working on that. (p. 12) As a final statement, I have chosen one in which we can clearly see the level efficiency that is used within coaching lessons. Robinson refers here to lessons with people who are not planning on taking a lot of lessons. He wants to improve the players skills in situations which are the most problematic, showing an instrumental approach towards in-game problems. In sum, videogame coaching supports the same qualities as instrumental play does.

Conclusion
The rise of videogame coaching and the increase of Instrumental play derived from other studiesa play style which focuses on efficiency, skills and success, rather than having fun during gameplay both seem to shift from playing games for fun to playing games to be successful, be the best, to win. In this paper I have shown that instrumental play seems to be a more serious gameplay than play as defined by Huizinga (1949). Furthermore instrumental play is becoming increasingly more important within competitive gaming communities of games such as StarCraft II and League of Legends. Videogame coaching seems to be a rather serious phenomenon as well. From both an economic perspective and a perspective on the phenomenon in the context of eSports, videogame coaching is also very much focused on becoming a better player, leading towards an increasing value of good players within competitive gaming communities. I have shown that taking videogame coaching lessons can be seen as a form of instrumental play, both very much promoting and supporting the same qualities.

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References
Castronova, E. (2001). Virtual Worlds: a First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier. The Gruter Institute Working Papers on Law, Economics and Evolutionary Biology. 2 (1). Retrieved 28 June, 2011, from http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=giwp. Consalvo, M. (2007). Cheating. Gaining advantage in Videogames. MIT Press. De Castell, S. & Jenson, J. (2003). Serious Play. JCS. 35. Retrieved 1 July, 2011, from http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/jcs/Vol35/decastell.html. Dibbell, J. (2003). The Unreal Estate Boom. Wired. 11 (1). Retrieved 1 July, 2011, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/gaming_pr.html. Dibbell, J. (2007). The Life of a Chinese Goldfarmer. Juliandibbell.com. Retrieved 22 June, 2011, from http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/goldfarmers.html. Eklund, L. & Johansson, M. (2010). Social Play? A study of social interaction in temporary group formation (PUG) in World of Warcraft. Nordic DiGRA. Retrieved 29 June, 2011, from http://www.digra.org/dl/db/10343.55072.pdf. Huizinga, J. (1938/1949). Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. Juul, J. (2010). A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Player. MIT Press. Kline, S. Dyer-Whiteford, N & De Peuter, G. (2003). Digital Play: the Interaction of Technology, Culture and Marketing. McGill-Queens University Press. McGonigal, J. (2010). Jane McGonigal: Gaming can Make a Better World. www.Ted.com. Retrieved 20 June, 2011, from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html. McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is Broken. Why Games Make Us Better and how They Can Change the World. London: Jonathan Cape. Myers, D. (2007). Self and selfishness in online social play. DiGRA. Retrieved 1 july, 2011, from http://www.digra.org/dl/db/07312.58121.pdf. Prax, P. (2010). Leadership Style in World of Warcraft Raid Guilds. Nordic DiGRA. Retrieved 3 July, 2011, from http://www.nordic-digra.org/nordicdigra2010_submission_11.pdf. Raessens, J. (2006). Playful Identities, or the Ludification of Culture. Games and Culture. 1 (1). 52-57. Rambusch, J. Jakobsson, P. & Pargman, D. (2007). Exploring E-sports: A Case Study of Gameplay in Counter-strike. DiGRA. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from http://www.digra.org/dl/db/07313.16293.pdf. 157 164. Rodriguez, H. (2006). The Playful and the Serious: An Approximation to Huizingas Homo Ludens. The international journal of computer game research. 6 (1). Retrieved 23 June, 2011, from http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/rodriges. Riezler, K. (1941). Play and Seriousness. The Journal of Philosophy. 38 (19). 505 517. Taylor, T.L. (2003). Power Gamers Just Want to Have Fun? Instrumental Play in MMOG. DiGRA. Retrieved 20 June, 2011, from http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05163.32071. Wagner, M.G. (2006). On the Scientific Relevance of eSports. International Conference on Internet

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Computing & Conference on Computer Games Development. Retrieved 26 June, 2011, from www1.ucmss.com/books/LFS/CSREA2006/ICM4205.pdf. Whitmore, John. (2009). Coaching for Performance: Growing Human Potential and Purpose. Nicholas Brealey publishing. Williams, D. Ducheneaut, N. Xiong, L. Yee, N. & Nickell, E. (2006). From Tree House to Barracks. The Social Life of Guilds in World of Warcraft. Games and Culture. 1 (4). 338 361. Yee, N. (2006a). The Labor of Fun. How Video Games Blur the Boundaries of Work and Play. Games and Culture. 1 (1). 68 71. Yee. N. (2006b). The Demographics, Motivations and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively Multi-User Online Graphical Environments. PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. 15. 309-329.

Games
Blizzard Entertainment. (2004). World of Warcraft. California: Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard Entertainment. (2010). Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. California: Blizzard Entertainment. Riot Games. (2009). League of Legends. California: Riot Games. Sony Online Entertainment. (1999). EverQuest. California: Sony Online Entertainment Sierra Studios. (1999). Counter-Strike. Washington: Valve Corporation.

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Appendix 1
Interview on StarCraft II Coaching with Geoff iNcontrol Robinson
*This interview has been recorded and can also be found at http://www.justin.tv/incontroltv/b/287084410 starting at 0:43:43 * Interviewer Geoff iNcontrol Robinson.

Alright, here we go! Uhm so I already explained to you who I am, what I am doing, so I start right with the questions. EhmWhy Why, or how, does one want to become better at StarCraft? Well, the how and whyeh are two separate questions to be honest. The how that this is a mental game, its very difficult, it is not one to be. Ehm..played casually or of the cough. You certainly can and there are what are called use maps setting versions for this game that are quite fun and they dont require nearly as much work. So for those thats what their enjoyment lay, or lies, but for the rest that wanna play this game and want to beat people and play it competitively, but not even as strong in the professional scene, just rather amongst their friends or their (?????). Ehm, this is a game that you have to sit down and think about, you have to go to work at, you have to pursue information, you have to talk to people even if you disagree with them the very conjecture dialogue that youd have with them will improve your understanding of the game, or at least aaah expand your mental capacity in realization of the games so that youre opening the doors, ehm, to thinking about this game in different ways. So the why, which is the next question, would be, because this is a passion for a lot of people or its just a hobby or its fun. Ehm, the last one I would say its competitive. This game is kind of a supercharged, eh, almost masculine battle of wits in a war setting and it channels that men are very proud of: the ability to better their opponent in a combat-like setting, so it channels a lot of what we as males, or just really gamers want to do better at. But also it is a difficult enough task where, that if you are good at this game, theres recognition that falls suit with that, so eh, if you an hour to play the game, if you have two hours or if you have twelve, this game calss to you to be one of the better people in your, maybe its your family, your workspace, or perhaps its the world. So, ehm for everybody there is varying degrees of success that they want to enjoy and this game allows them to feel rewarded for that. Cool. Cool, clear answer. Thank you. Ehm, and why does one then want to pay to become better. Because, like people go to uuuh people play soccer, people play tennis or whatever it is, they pay to become better. Ehm, why are they now willing to pay to become better at StarCraft?

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Thats a fantastic question, I mean, the short answer eh... which you just kind of touched on is that, for anybody theres hobbies that there are people better at, its their profession. So it makes sense to pair yourself alongside them and kind of just channel their knowledge of their abilities to ehm get better for yourself and that, of course, is not separate from StarCraft II. The long answer is that this game, for the reasons I previously mentioned, is both rewarding, but its rewarding in its difficult to achieve and thats why this game is so sought after from so many different people. Its ehm you dont just sit down and play it for 25 minutes a day and suddenly youre one of the best of your country. Youd have to play it 10, 12 hours a day, but how, but there are people who dont have that time. Theyve got a family, theyve got work, they have other obligations. So what they want to do is they want to still enjoy higher degrees of success and they still want to get better, but they need to expedite that process. They dont have the time search through the forums, they dont have the time to watch hours of replays or VODs or streams to get better information. So what they do is they pay a coach to expedite that process, cause the coach does have that time that time, or has had that time and they just they say okay youve done the work, now tell me what youve found and the coach needs to receive compensation for that time, so thats really a professional agreement, comes between students and teacher. Right, so thats when you come in, ehhh, obviously. Ehm, And how mmm-how often do you coach during the week? How often are you coaching players during the week? Well, it varies. Right now Ive raised my rates because my time is more valuable, as Im very occupied with the North American Star League. Evil geniuses expansion, or, you know eh things as well. Just lots of projects, so ehm, its not that I feel that Im worth necessarily that much time, just that like out of my day. But right now I am because my day is so chopped up with other things. So, ehm Right now I dont coach as much, cause Im very expensive but once some projects do cool down and I do get more availability, my rates will lower, cause I do have a passion for coaching, so Cool, cool. Typically its about 4 hours, 2-4 hours a day, and it used to be 6-8 a day, but thats not optimal because when I coached that much I couldnt practice eh I didnt have the motivation to practice as much so optimally itll be up to three hours a day once somebodys projects cool off. Alright, and how much time does, eeeeh like I, I suppose you give lessons like people somehow hire you for a couple of hours, at least, thats what Im thinking. Ehh Is this true? First of all? Yes, Yes. Yeah, right, so how-how much time does one lesson usually take? Do people hire you for just one hour or are, do they often like hire you for at least three hours or so? Well, you know, Ive actually coached up I think I once did an 8 hour session with a student and Ive done a 30 minute session with a student before, so Thats the spectrum. The typical session is 1 hour or 2. Right.

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Id say its 50-50. Right.. And-and what do you offer as a coach? What kind of stuff do you learn to these people. I-I bet its it must be veryeh it must be a variety of things but could you-could you tell me a bit more about what you do in these lessons? Sure, eeeehmm. In a lesson typically I start off with saying what level are you? and whats giving you a hard time? What would you like to work on? And usually on that very short question, aah I get a very short answer, and thats what I go off of. Right A lot of people come to me and they say its decision-making or its ehm this particular match-up or I just simply dont know how to counter this composition. Right Ehm I find for the short term its best to ask the student what they have the most difficult time dealing with and then working on that ehm Some of my students come to me and they say I wanna grab 20 hours of your time and were gonna spread that out over the course of a month or two Cool And I wanna work on everything,.. and then with those students, then I just keep tabs of.. what weve worked on, what weve talked about, what they need to continue to work on, cause everyone learns at a different pace, so obviously I dont just spray them with information and move on. I need to make sure that they absorb it so that they are actually getting quality from their time ehm And then what I usually do is I offer, at the end of a session, say, listen, youve got my Skype, youve got my contact information. Thats yours to keep. Just find uh, I mean, if you never have another session with me again I dont care, uh, I want you to use me as an ongoing resource, so I try to create myself as a social network for them to connect to other players, but also if they have a question. Uuh I tell them to leave it on Skype and Ill answer it so I kinda become a call center for their StarCraft II needs basically. Cool. Thats very cool. But ha-have you already had some experiences where people who-who-who asked you to coach didnt really like the lessons? Ive had a few people Yeah Ive had a Ill tell you this, Ive coached for several thousand hours, probably. Wow. Three- or four thousand hours over the course of 2 years and Ive coached, I dont know if its a thousand people but its certainly several hundred, eh, many many hundreds of people and Ive had 3 maybe, 2 or 3 people that have vocally told me they were dissatisfied, and 2 of those 3, at least, came from technical difficulties like the Internet was being choppy at the time, or was laggy and they somehow placed the blame with me, so I, you know, I accept that responsibility ehm, Im okay with

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that ratio And then theres been someone whos just like youre terrible so. To each their own *laugh*, but ehm the overwhelming result thus far has been that people are very very happy pretty much just to sit down and learn StarCraft II and to be honest with you, I do pride myself on my coaching. I do want to excel and be the best coach on the planet. In anything I do. If its StarCraft II or anything else Im a- Im an educator to the soul and thats kind of what I pride myself on ehm, but for me a lot of my students Its impossible for me to fail on them because they come from a situation where they dont have friends to play StarCraft II, they dont have ehm, they dont have anyone to relate to with the game so they end up paying me, but honestly weve couldve talked about we couldve talked about zerglings and how terrible they are for 2 hours and they wouldve been happy, because they just wanna talk StarCraft II. Right, right, right. Ehm. Well, this is a nice bridge to my next question. It wasnt intentionally on my list but Ive, I Its more like a personal question about what do consider to be a good coach. I dont know if you know other people who are coaching who think, whod.eh. Well, u think that they are, probably, good coaches or not. Anything to say about that? Uh, yeah, I mean, thats a fantastic question. I would say that the qualities that make someone a good coach is A) they have to have patienceehm a lot of people that are qualified to coachthethe assumption is that they are of a higher skill than the person that theyre coaching and often times when you tell em to do something, or explain something they just dont get it and its hard for them to implement Right. And if you get frustrated with them or if you get quick or if you just dont, you know, work with them on it, then youre kinda wasting their time and money ehm, theyre paying you to make sure that they understand those things so if you dont have patience then, ehm, youre not going to be able to be a good coach. The next thing is communicationah,.. its very very important that youre able to not only have thoughts on improving the game for other players but also to convey them, to the student, so you need to be a great communicator. Right. And then, last but not least, I think you have to have a sense of humor and I think that sounds kinda funny but honestly a lot of people step into the situation and-and part of their issue is theyre extremely frustrated game. Theyre very uptight. They dont understand why the game is not working the way they wanted to Right. And if you fuel that fire, if you kind of be brittle with them and-nd ah rigid, then often times you are doing them a mental disservice which is actually the underlying current for why people are good or bad at this game. Its very rarely a physical or just like a knowledge thing. Everyone knows what they need to

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do but a lot of people mentally block themselves (?? for being ??) able to achieve because the frustration or ehm anger. So a lot of ragequits then or faceplants then, right? Yeah. Facepalms, right. Ehm alright, ehm Well, Ive got a last question. I was wondering if you could tell anything about the-the variety of players youve coached? Are they ehm Are they mainly from Europe or North America or where-where are they from? What level are they on? Its mostly North American players Ehm, I have coached a number of, you know, people from all over the world. Cool. I think only one from the Asian servers so I guess that would be a place that I dont necessarily consider Ehm But most of the people come from all different walks of life. Ive coached young individuals, I think the youngest was something like twelve or thirteen and Ive coached older individuals being 35 to 40 and And every one of them has kind of a different story, but the common one, I suppose, is that they are a working business individual. They are successful, because obviously coaching is a privileged place, you know you dont- you dont cut out a meal out of your day to afford a coaching session. True. And they just dont have the time. They have a family, they have a job, they are going to school to be a doctor. The-they just, theyre- They dont have the ability to contribute as much time as they need to be as good as they want to be, but they played brood wars 10 years ago or they come from a competitive ex-game, you know, background and playing this game casually just doesnt suit for them so throwing a couple hundred dollars at a coach to make them better makes sense to them.

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