I am always talked about, but never explored. Everyone sees me, but at the same time, no one sees me.

...and I am mandatory for Overwatch as an esport moving forward. What am I?

I recently sat down with Daniel “Imagine” Tompos, a leading Overwatch esports observer to discuss the hidden nature of observing, how it helps sell a broadcast and some backroom questions surrounding some of Overwatch’s biggest LANs to-date.

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Hello, Imagine! Now, I and a few others may know of you, but for those who don't, where do you fit in with Overwatch esports?

Hello! I've been around the esports side of Overwatch since the early beta, I started with providing some support for 2GD's tournament at the end of beta phase one and continued to work with Fishstix on the One Nation of Gamers tournaments. On release, I was an observer for Agents Rising, which led into doing observing work for other tournaments, such as the Atlantic Showdown at Gamescom, TBS's Eleague, Blizzard's World Cup and most recently, MLG Vegas.

Now, jumping straight into things, if the caster is the voice of an esport, than the observer would be the eyeglasses. Being a part of observing the scene, why do you think many tournaments have not used some of the same top talents? Is our little bubble just too small right now?

This is a question I wonder about, myself. There's so much that goes into planning tournaments, more than anyone watching will ever know, and who knows where along those lines the observing team is even thought about? Could it be just a funds issue? Could it be that whoever is putting together the tournament doesn't quite understand the Overwatch scene and thinks they can just throw someone at it, whoever it is? Is it just that they feel way more comfortable working with someone they have before, regardless of that person's experience? Or do they just have no contact with other tournament organizers to find out who's done observing for others before? I don't believe it's anything malicious honestly, but just more of a matter of happenstance.

With more support seemingly incoming, do you think that more observation gigs will open up coming with the genesis of Blizzard's Overwatch League? We know it is not supposed to be run all year round; could this pave the way for more ESL/MLG’s to come into the space and carve out a niche? What are your thoughts on this?

I can only hope so. It's something that's really up to tournament organizers though and how much they're willing to invest in the back-end production personnel. A lot of this will also probably be predicated on just how successful Overwatch League is. If numbers and interest are good -- and by proxy, sponsors -- I can really see the off-season tournament scene booming.

So, ya know, no pressure, Blizzard and everyone who's going to be working on the league. ;)

MonteCristo has mentioned many times that OGN has around 3-4 observers at any one time. Within your history with Overwatch, how many people do you think are needed to observe the well? Have there been any tournaments that have had a surprising number of observers?

I would say 3-4 and a game director is absolutely necessary to put on a quality show. I've done everything from running production and observing at the same time out of my home -- an absolute nightmare -- to working just as a solo observer in a studio, to working with 7 observers and a game director for the World Cup. It was probably a little bit of overkill, and with the improvements Blizzard made in the spectator client around the World Cup time, reduced a number of people necessary, but the pacing of the is as such that 3-4 will probably always be necessary for the best quality.

If you can stretch your memory far back enough, what were some of your fondest and worst memories of working Blizzard’s World Cup last year at Blizzcon? Did you have a favorite hero to jump to?

Watching the sheer unbridled joy that the Thailand team was playing with was probably my favorite part of the World Cup. Often, you see teams that are just stone-faced and almost look like they don't really care if they win or lose -- which is false of course, but you can't really tell their facial expressions -- so to see a team that was thrilled to be at the World Cup, having fun with the player cams and the like, was super refreshing.

The worst possibly memory would've been the weird tiebreaker system that we had for group stages where we potentially could've been playing matches well into the night. Didn't happen thankfully, but the slow realization of “oh God, we could be here into the wee hours of the morning,” was a doozy.

As far as heroes to jump to, my personal favorite will always be Pharah. In first person she almost acts as a free cam as well since she's often just up and around, seeing the entire fight develop.

Speaking of switching on the fly, I know of a few interesting “rules” of casting, but are there any laws or themes you try to focus on in your observing? How does the allowance of switching camera angles actually work?

So to understand observing a little better, you have to know that there's a division of labor. This depends on a number of observers available and I can really only speak for the tournaments I've done. Duties are usually split between some observers acting as only first person cams and others as only free cams. This allows each observer to focus on a very specific thing, rather than having to think about where best to place a free cam shot and which 1st person hero to switch to next; that is something that's left to a game director. Because of this, the rules that are followed are different depending on what role you're taking.

First person cams will usually stick with the same team so the game director knows “observer one” is always red an “observer two” is blue. Freecams operate more around the 180-degree rule from the film, where you always want to be on one side of the action because switching 180 degrees to the other side is incredibly jarring to viewers. Of course, sometimes you need to be more flexible with what you're doing, but that's more or less how the breakdown goes.

Turner has been really interested it seems in branching out its esports limbs. When you worked Eleague’s Overwatch Open tournament, what was the ambiance of working alongside some of TV’s greats? Were there directors and producers? What were your overall thoughts on the experience?

I actually have a degree in RTVF (radio-television-film), so being in a control room like the one at the TBS studio was super cool. I was really thrilled when Jason Baker (Alchemist) contacted me; the guy is really well known for his work in the fps genre (Counter-Strike for the most part), and he had some great ideas about how to present the game in a way that made sense. Of course, it was also nice that I was working alongside a couple of other observers whom I had just worked with for a week before as well, so I wasn't a complete stranger.

The interesting thing was that, even though that production staff was top notch and they really knew what they were doing, they also didn't really know that much about Overwatch, and heavily relied on the observing team because of that. Essentially, while all the shiny graphics and rotating stage and all that were run by them, when we got into the game, it was all for us observers. Overall, a great experience -- Turner really took care of us and [ I ] wouldn't hesitate to work for them again.

How many of the larger plans have you seen with a director for observing? Did you notice a more cohesive and fluid product at the end?

Oh, absolutely. The first LAN I worked at was Agents Rising, when the game had just released, and the director there had very little experience with the game to where at times he was just guessing on what was going on. I had been lucky enough to have gotten early beta access and so I was trying to do both observing and calling out when to switch to a camera or what to put in the picture-in-picture. It was [ with ] minimal success, but at that point, the bigger worry was that each game had 2-3 McCree's on both sides and, like, 4 “high noons” going off at once.

By the time we got around to practicing for the World Cup, I think everyone understood that having a game director was going to be absolutely necessary, but also needed someone who really understood the game. So here I'll give a big shoutout to Seamoose who was a part-time team coach but ended up being the game director during the World Cup and did as good of a job as you could've asked for. The guy really worked his butt off to figure out how to best handle six different computer inputs, and while it was certainly a bit of a rough start when we were all brought together, we were rolling by the time the matches actually started happening, and I feel like that really showed in the end product.

It’s safe to say that you have the track record to be considered in the first generation of “big” observer in Overwatch esports. When was the last tournament you did the observing for? Were there any tournaments you wish you could have worked?

The last tournament I was called for was MLG Vegas, and to be honest, the scene has been a little sparse on LAN events since then since most of everyone at this point is in a holding pattern, waiting to hear details on Overwatch League. As for tournaments, I wish I could've worked... I'd say that any that I didn't work. I want to do them all -- every single one. I'd even love to do OGN, minus the entire language barrier thing. Maybe I should buy a Rosetta Stone for Korean...

With working with the observation teams at Gamescom, Eleague, Beyond the Summit and even Blizzard World Cup, why in the world are people still using new talent when we have great, established talent?

That's a fantastic question. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against newer folks trying their hand at it; the scene can only benefit from that. But selfishly, I wouldn't mind knowing the answer to that question either. Is it a matter of money? A matter of organizer not caring enough? Of them not knowing who to contact? Beats me.

Casters work in pairs, same with analysts, what are your thoughts on an “observing team”, where you and a few of your peers could market and sell your product as a package deal? Are there enough people for this idea to be even teased?

This is actually a thing [ that’s ] kinda sorta already happening. Some of the guys from the World Cup I worked with at Eleague while others I worked at MLG Vegas with, so I think that's a path that's being explored already by tournament organizers as well. There are certainly a few of us who have worked together enough now and get along well both in and out of the workplace that I hope we can reach that sort of deal.

The downside of this, of course, is it would make it really tough for new people to break into the scene and I'd feel a bit bad about that. I don't want to be some sort of exclusive old boys club, but still, when you work with people you already know and like, it makes it hard to split from them.

Now that esports has started to really spin its wheels the last few years, do you think observing will be a career option in esports for those who find enjoyment in it?

God, I hope so. The opportunity to make a long term living from it has been scarce across all games, and as always it's a matter of funding, but I really do hope so, for both my sanity and wallet.

Has there been anyone from another esports scene that you’ve looked up to or have studied under? Perhaps Flo or Adebisi from the Starcraft 2 scene?

I actually started my esports production and observing Chops in SC2 working for the CSL for a while, and Flo was someone who I really respected for her work in the scene. So, of course, I was totally shocked when I found out that I'd be working alongside her during Agents Rising and then once again during the Atlantic Showdown and the World Cup, it was really awesome to work alongside someone whom I had heard of for a long time like that.

What are your thoughts on the state of spectator side of Overwatch? With a myriad of proposed changes to the spectating client, from mini-maps to better 3rd person camera support, what does Imagine think could be improved?

All of the above. To be fair here, there's been a lot of really good changes in the spec client in the last half year or so; camera hotkey locations were a game changer, mouse smoothing was super nice, even something as mundane as the ability to change team names in the lobby was great. Currently, I would say that a minimap would probably be the next biggest thing, but something that had been talked about before is having observer video be a bit delayed, but the kill feed in real time so that we can always be looking at what kills are going on so we'd never miss another Genji 4k or something of that sort.

Awesome! Last but, not least I do believe you are inclined to any and all shout outs!

As for shoutouts, specifically to the other observers, I've become good friends with, Maikol, Alex, Connor, Jacky, Flo and Seamus. I hope to work with them all in the future again. Also, a shout out to Trevor and Adam from the esports team at Blizzard who have really helped me along the way, as well as their dev team who came down to talk to us during the World Cup multiple times to ask what kinds of things we'd like to see happen to make our jobs easier.

Interview written and conducted by: @Volamel

Please follow and hire Imagine for your next event! @Imagine42_

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment and @davidchen10