GosuGamers Barcraft World Tour

Hey there, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m Thomas, I’m 29, product manager for an IT online gaming company, and I'm Co-founder of Barcraft Austria.

So what’s your SC2 story? How'd you start with barcrafts?
I started playing back in the original Starcraft. When SC2 came out, I was playing a lot and watching pro matches. I wanted to watch with friends and we sometimes just talked on skype while watching. I wanted to watch a tournament live, so I got to the Copenhagen games 2010. I was just visiting, but they had a free slot so I played and it was fun as a mediocre player. I later went to IEM and met up with the Team Liquid community which was great, and this triggered something. I needed to start something in our local community. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to do more. I came back to Vienna and one week later I bumped into this guy that liked the idea, not much was going on in the barcraft scene at the time, a few events were happening at the US but we didn’t really know what to do. We searched around for barcrafts in Europe and realized there just wasn’t any. We were amongst the first to try, and it was a nice experience being at the start of something so big as the barcraft movement.

Where do you hold the events?
The other co-founder and I thought about what we need for an event. So we need a laptop at the location, and a facebook page to start. I didn’t have a laptop for streaming (though later I bought one), so we had to get one from a friend. About the location - I know Vienna pretty well since I go out a lot, so we checked a couple of places. I had a presentation on my iPad with all kinds of pictures - a barcraft in Seattle, a big crowd at a tournament, pics of Tastosis casting, and people playing. I got asked all sorts of questions - what’s a barcraft? Do people need to play in the bar? I had to explain we just watch games, just like any other sport.

Most places were booked out, didn’t have time, or didn’t need the business. Then I found Replugged, where we didn’t have a competition with soccer since it isn’t usually that full. Because of that it was easy to convince the bar owner. After the first time he was really happy to have us and as the place wasn’t too big, it was just a great fit.

At one point in one of the events, all the seats were taken, and people kept coming in. You couldn’t get up from your seat or move around at all, and still people were outside. We had to find a bigger place, and someone from the community recommended Kringers. Last time was a test to see if the place is bigger, it has a couple of floors, and with just one for us it’s not much different, but next time we might get 2 floors so it’ll be double the space.

How do you advertise?
The biggest question was - how do I reach out to the community. Creating a facebook page and hoping people will tell each other isn’t a sure thing. There’s a game developer’s gallery in Vienna where indie developers meet, it’s a weekly gathering thing. I thought I’ll probably find people there, and that’s where I met my co-founder. I asked a question about e-sports and as an enthusiast he picked it up. I talked to him afterwards and we saw we were on the same page and started the barcraft event.

We printed some flyers at my printer at home, but the question was - where to put them. We had to find a location where gamers will find it. I went to the local gamestop and tried to put the flyers there but they weren’t very cooperative. Management came and said they have their own posters and we can’t put it near the store. We also tried places that sell computer parts and games but I don’t think that really work. I guess twitter and facebook was the main thing that brought people.

How are you dealing with money? Do you charge at the entrance?
We don’t have an entrance fee. We have presentations between games, when there’s nothing interesting on the stream. We show funny pictures from the community, tournament info, brackets, stuff you wanna know while watching. We also got a mic and we do some narration in between, there’s an idea about casting but for now it’s just me speaking to people. Someone has to prepare these things, I have to invest my time, but we don’t charge for anything.

There are also handouts, we print brackets and put it on tables and previews presenting the players, since people don’t always know everything. People come with friends, girlfriends, and we wanna help them get started. There are dedicated SC2 community fans, but also people who don’t know the game that well or at all. With barcraft, since it’s a social event and everyone is having fun together it has the ability to show people into the gamers world, barcrafts have an ability to explain this world to people who don’t know it.

So how’s the community responding? How often do you have barcrafts?
We wanna see what the community wants, meaning how many times. Once a month guarantees a full bar. We had a bi-weekly thing, but people don’t have that much time to invest, we tried it and almost had a 100 people twice a week, but I don’t think it can last. The organizers also have to invest a lot of time just handling the event so it’s hard on us as well.

About the people, I love how dedicated they are. There’s a cool story - we had a barcraft on a Sunday night, MLG finals, and since we’re in Europe you have to stay up to 2 or 3 in the morning. We posted a pic of the people in the barcraft with signs and put it up on twitter. They showed the pic on the stream, and this guy who was at home saw that and was shocked that there’s a barcraft in Vienna. At that hour there is no public transportation, so he took a cab, at 1 AM, and came to the bar. Even though it was just about to end he still came just for the experience, I just love that dedication people have.

What about growing? Tournaments, other things?
There are a lot of ideas about a barcraft tournament, even barcrafts playing against each other, like a city thing. It’s an interesting idea, but right now I wanna focus on sustainability. We’re at a healthy size, and I don’t think we need to grow in that sense. Lasting a year or two is what I wanna go for. People overlook these things, but it’s not granted that a barcraft event will survive. As a person who organizes it, to maintain this level of enthusiasm over months between events, it's not easy.

There’s this idea, of creating a non profit e-sports organization - officially recognized by austrian law. It’s still just an idea, but that’s what we’re working on, it’s a start. With that we can really be an e-sport spectating community, which is what we are. That’s why we started barcrafts, and the reason I hesitate about going into tournaments is because it’s a different project, and if you wanna do it right you need a lot of effort. In any case the community is growing - ONOG (One Nation Of Gamers) is doing a great job. I just think we have to focus on what we are. We need to stay alive and that’s more important than growing.

Can you give advice to people trying to hold events?
I would say just do it. Don’t think about things like - will I get enough people, are there enough people in my city, how to organize. The most important thing is location. If you got a bar giving you space, your event should be a success. In a big city it will always work, I believe there are enough people interested in SC2. Use facebook, use local community. Get a location then take care of everything else.

Thanks Thomas! Any shoutout's you wanna make?
Shoutout to the Austrian community. If you wanna start a barcraft in the area, let us know and we’ll try and help. To all the international barcraft, we wanna unite and grow stronger together. We’re already doing stuff like that with a barcraft in Germany, Munich and Berlin - we have weekly skype calls and we coordinate stuff. Looking forward to more cooperation!


Run a barcraft event? Leave us a comment with a facebook link and we’ll contact you.



This is a GosuGamers weekly feature by Eyal "KOKOStern" Stern, that is published every Wednesday.