Esports continues to make its mark known in the gaming industry as one of the sectors building communities of gamers, enthusiasts and spectators alike. From raking in revenue in over a billion dollars and racking up hundreds of millions in views, it is safe to say that esports is here to stay and will be around for a good time.
This season has covered topics around the business of esports, from setting up an esports business to building teams and partnering with governments and their respective ministries, and today’s guest brings in a perspective of improv through her book “Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up”. Patricia Ryan Madson is her name, and she is a professor emeritus at Stanford University.
“Most of us spend a lot of our life actually looking over our shoulders…and there's a great fear in looking stupid or not doing well enough in other people's eyes” —- Patricia Madson, “Improv Wisdom”
To venture into the world and business of esports, it is necessary to believe very much in the support you are offering or bringing to the table. Now it may not have exact plans mapped out, but doing what needs to be done being the end goal to achieve requires that it is not second guessed. There may be obvious reasons as to why a task or duty needs to be performed so launching into it would not have to be spontaneous.
Patricia points out that with improv, you look to be quick with the cleverness while you are on stage performing, and with the training be able to do so project a more natural and free flowing performance. Take conversations for example. You may not be provided themes or topics from which questions will have to be answered in a certain manner, and even with what may seem to require factual responses, phrasing, tonal inflections and summaries will all be improvised.
An improviser, she says, is one that is alert and paying attention to what is around them. Most gamers are and have to be improvisers, because there will be moves made by themselves or opponents that can lead to either party scoring more points or losing a game. They are attentive and notice these changes and updates, to which they will have to accept, appreciate the outcomes and work towards changing or maintaining the play.
“ In improv, we train to work with the idea that's right in front of our mind rather than struggling to get a good idea. And I bet good gamers are, in a sense, reactive in that way.” — Patricia Madson, “Improv Wisdom”
Patricia also makes the point of learning to take the pressure of yourself when you have to make that important move to score a point and change the direction of a game. The trick to doing this is to encourage the thought of getting out of your way to strive for excellence; look forward to also encouraging the thought of making something in the line of bad art, where you know that the outcome is not something you will hold on to seriously because you expected these results. Oftentimes that ends up with you doing really well because you did not put any pressure on yourself; you just worked with what was before you and went on ahead creating.
Improv is also a way of helping teams work together. You all get to identify that there is a problem that needs to be solved, as you each understand the rules of the game to know what you are dealing with. Delegating tasks to members becomes easier because everyone has to look out for each other, and in the end sharpens everyone rather than taking the shine for oneself.
“Another aspect that improv can be helpful for in your world is helping teams work together.” —- Patricia Madsen, “Improv Wisdom”
Improv connects and translates to other cultures well. With the baseline being positivity, you can have people of different age groups and educational backgrounds coming together to play games. This can go a long way to putting political differences aside and have people agree on playing games, not because of the rule but because the agreement makes sense to all.
What improv allows to be achieved through working with people is to understand that there are those who cannot be fundamentally changed. Learning to live with this knowledge helps you devise ways to make suggestions that they can settle for, and where there needs to be change should be with people’s behaviors.
Esports has helped create jobs for lots of people. Interested in knowing about the business side of esports? Listen to the Gamers Change Lives Podcast! We get experienced guests from all around the world featuring.
Written By Jeffrey Osei-Agyeman
