mousesports: What was the funniest situation in your career as a professional writer?

Carmac: Ah yes, ESWC 2004. On the night before the first play day of the event, the people gathered, said hi to each other and all that. Of course, those that didn't have to play, like journalists, had a few drinks. I shared a hotel room with a journalist (no name will be given!) and the Swedish team captain for Quake 3, raccoon. As we were in the hotel room, the drunk journalist fell asleep in the middle of the conversation.

We decided that it was disrespectful to us and required punishment. We started painting him with toothpaste, tying him up with toilet paper, putting random items in his mouth and so on. We took pictures with flash, but he wouldn't wake up. Then I got the idea to mix liquid soap with shampoo (both were a nice white/grey colour) and put several drops of that on his face. A photo session followed. In the morning, he woke up clean and spotless, untied and he did not know anything about what went on earlier that night. But when he opened his laptop in the press room, he had a brand new desktop wallpaper...

mousesports: I think we should come to an end quickly, but first we are going to take a look at gamings future: With this year's QuakeCon, where you have to battle your opponents in all four quake games and the CGS, where you can only be on top by beating the other teams in four completely different games - is this the future of professional gaming, where you have to adept to dissimilar games very quickly?

Carmac: You can't really wake up one day and reinvent esports. It doesn't work that way. Has anyone ever played Counter-Strike: Source the way it is played in the CGS before the CGS came around? Has anyone tried making team competitions in five games where the total score adds up like in CGS? The answer is: no.

And why is the answer negative? Because it's not natural for esports. Esports needs rules and systems which help determine who the best player is, not make it artificially exciting. WWE wrestling can be done this way, not a genuine sport.

You don't need to simplify gaming, you don't need to pay people to come and be the audience in a television studio in order to have an exciting product. StarCraft is the most complex game out there and tens of thousands pay to watch the finals live. You need to work very, very hard to educate your audience about esports. Putting five million dollars into a stage setup will not cut it.

mousesports: Ok, so you said, you just can't reinvent esports, but this is exactly what the big tournaments are trying to do at the moment: A lot of gamers always wanted to see esports beeing accepted by (and shown on) the mainstream media. Now, we got some huge tournaments (like WSVG, CGS, or CPL) contracted by broadcasting companies and instantly changed their game choices, more to adress the casual gamer (with GH2, FNR3 and a lot of console competitions, especially fitting the american market). Is this the price professional players now have to pay for being promoted in the mainstream media?

Carmac: Again, I ask: did StarCraft have to pay any price? Or... could you imagine rules of soccer being changed to look more exciting for the American audience? Why do normal gamers have to pay that price? If gaming is not ready to deliver the right numbers for television, then it's not ready. End of story.

If you change something drastically, then you will only build a big wall between professional gaming and normal gaming. Now imagine if the Bundesliga was played with different game rules than on every other football pitch in Germany. Does it make sense at all? Is it good for football this way?

Gaming should be universal everywhere. It should be the same. You are interested in the WCG or the ESWC because you play Counter-Strike too, and you can relate to the skill and to the players. Sometimes you can even compete against them in a WCG qualifier. But why should you be interested if you cannot relate to how they play the game?

mousesports: Polish developer DreamCatcher recently announced the sequel of good ol' Painkiller - Painkiller: Overdose. In my opinion, PK wasn't the most spectacular game to play, but the CPL World Tour 2005 was the best tournament series to watch up to date, with their amount of stops and video coverage. Do you think, Overdose got a chance to be picked up by a huge tournament?

Carmac: The CPL World Tour was not a good tournament circuit by my standards. The number of players in it already disqualifies it. The number of players was directly linked to the fact that the game was bad. Imagine if they had picked up Quake 3 - that's a 128-man tournament guaranteed at every stop with that kind of prize money.

Also, everyone that's in the right age and has an interest in PC gaming has played Quake 3 at some point. A ton of people can relate to Quake 3 because they have seen or played it, even if they're not competitive gamers. They would have had a GREAT CPL World Tour with Quake 3. Instead, people say that deathmatch is dead.

If you want a successful tournament circuit, you need to pick up a game which was so huge in the mainstream that thousands and thousands of people could relate to it when watching. From this perspective (and this perspective only), World of Walking is a great game. If PK: Overdose is not a MAJOR selling title, it's not going to succeed.

StarCraft 2 may be the new major title that will change esports as we know it.... Mark my words... if the game comes out and it's good for competition, things will CHANGE.

mousesports: Ok, dziekuje bardzo for the extensive interview. Now, it's your time for any last shoutouts, or tell us everything you ever dreamed of in the end of an interview!

Carmac: Hmm... I hope that if you think I'm worthy of the eSports Award you've already voted! I hope the CGS will not get their hands on StarCraft 2...  I also hope to get laid at every single event and I hope my girlfriend is not reading this!!!