Interview With John 'JoRoSaR' Sargent on British eSports and Casting.

John 'JoRoSaR' Sargent is a London based Starcraft 2 player and caster, he has recently had an international stint casting for Dreamhack, MLG and other large events including WCS qualifiers. A growing name in eSports, I spoke to John to see how the experience has been for him and what the future holds for this community member on the rise.

 

Hi John, how are you today?

JoRoSaR: I'm doing great thanks! I just came back from two weeks away at a chess tournament of all things, so a little rusty on the Starcraft side. I managed to catch the GSL finals though, and I also came back to Gangnam Style, which is interesting to say the least!

 

You've had an extremely busy year, casting around the world and growing as an eSports personality, how has it been on a personal level?

JoRoSaR: It's been a completely whirlwind in every sense of the word. In fact I recently blogged about my trip to the states and how several casting opportunities more or less came through to me at the last minute. It has been very rewarding on a personal level to know that I contributed to making a number of live events successful, and it's great to finally touch base with Starcraft fans on the west coast as well. It has made me even more hungry to get better at what I do and get to more events in the future.

 

Of all the players, casters and community members, who has been the most inspirational to you?

JoRoSaR: There are so many people behind the scenes, it's difficult to single people out - among the people I met personally though, if pushed I'd have to say two people in particular: Kevin Knocke and Brandi Plemmons (@Brightside_SC2 of Girls Of Starcraft). They both come from a very selfless background where they've uprooted themselves and moved across the country to serve eSports, and they give so much back to the community that is entirely unprompted that there is no questioning the love and passion they have for eSports.

I would be very happy to become more like them and I hope that more people emulate them in our community.

 

British eSports is on the rise, with the introduction of leagues and WCS UK being successful, which players are you most excited about?

JoRoSaR: I'm particularly excited for Ziktomini, who I was hyping as a real dark horse at the WCS UK ever since the first online qualifier - and nobody seemed to agree with me back then! So I'm very glad that his game is coming along nicely. JonnyRecco has done well to get picked up by Dignitas and of course, and BlinG & DeMusliM are the stalwarts of British SC2 gaming at the moment.

I'm looking forward to seeing how more up-and-coming players such as Ourk and Phamut go about breaking into the top tier. Now that I think about it, there are a lot of Zergs flying about over this way, aren't there?

 

Do you plan to cast more internationally or are we more likely to see you in the UK in the coming months?

JoRoSaR: I would love to try my best and do both! It's obviously very difficult being an 'up-and-coming' caster because while there's a lot of debate about casters getting recognition more than the players etc., at the end of the day there are significantly fewer paying positions for casters and much higher competition for them as a result - but I hope my personal funds will last for me to get to as many tournaments as I can!

During August I will only be casting online as I'm seeing family back in Asia and as a consequence will be missing i46, but I hope to be back with i-Series in the U.K. at some point again in the future. As far as continental Europe and North America are concerned, "we'll have to wait and see"... ;-)

 

If you could cast with anyone, player or caster, who would you pick?

JoRoSaR: Ooooh, now this is a tough one! There are many casters that I would love the pleasure of casting with - in no particular order, DJWheat, Apollo, Artosis and Day9. However, I'll again think of somebody that I met on my trip that I would really love to cast with and pick a player - Liquid'Sheth. :-)

The manner bear himself is one of the easiest people to bounce conversation off of and is possibly the friendliest pro-player in eSports, and naturally at his lofty level of play his analysis would be pretty spot on. It would be fantastic to work with Shawn sometime.

 

Uk leagues are starting to become recognised, are you excited to see how people perform in these leagues?

JoRoSaR: It remains to be seen how they will do in the long run - for example, some European based team leagues this year didn't run so smoothly which was a real shame as it was fun seeing university teams compete against each other. An individual league, however, could turn out very differently indeed and I have my fingers crossed that they will start to unearth more hidden talent from within the U.K. scene. It's grass roots initiatives like this that make eSports more accepted and mainstream, so I hope they take off.

 

Many casters assosciate themselves with teams, is this something you have at all considered?

JoRoSaR: This would definitely be something I would look at if the opportunity arose, but I think it's more important to improve as a caster and a player myself, and get to where I really want to be and see how much I can contribute to eSports. Once that happens, opportunities will come - but first I will work on making sure I can give as much to the community as I possibly can. I believe this is the right approach.

 

If people want to beat you at DDR, which LAN events can we expect to see you at in the near future?

JoRoSaR: You know, I bet that by the next time I'm at an i-Series BlinG will be able to stomp me, with that guy's work ethic I'm pretty certain if he wanted to he could blow me out of the water now that he knows about me! (Context) Hopefully I'll get some training in with GGAndyPandy beforehand to keep my level up!  I won't be at i46 but will hope to be at an i-Series event at a later date, and I may well go to a few more tournaments abroad before the end of the year...watch this space!

 

Finally John, any shout outs?

JoRoSaR: I'd like to give a massive shoutout to tournament admins and stream technicians everywhere, both offline and online - who take torrents of abuse and blame from players and spectators alike but are often the grease that keeps tournaments running. You guys don't get enough recognition and I salute you.

On a more personal level, many thanks to everyone who accommodated me, guided me and made my stay in the U.S. such a pleasant one even when I wasn't casting (I will omit people I exclusively cast with as otherwise the list would be huge, but you know who you are

Finally, I'd like to say thanks to a couple of special people who had faith in me and helped give me a lot of the opportunities that I've had recently - Kharne from Multiplay, Kevin Knocke, MLGPuckett, Frodan, DJWheat, Tumba, Hellspawn and Steisjo from Dreamhack / WCS Europe, and last but most certainly not least dignitas.ODEE. I hope I've lived up to your expectations and that I can help grow things even more in the future for the benefit of the eSports community. :-)

 
Illustration Courtesy of OJPaper

 

A huge thank you to John for taking the time to talk to me, it's always a pleasure to see a UK based caster and a friend rise up the ranks and I wish him the best at luck! To follow John check these links:

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/JoRoSaR
Twitter:  www.twitter.com/JoRoSaR
Website/Blog: www.JoRoSaR.com

As always to follow me check out @dignitasava ! Thanks for reading!