SA shoutcaster reveals what it’s like to be an esports commentator

We all know that many of the job descriptions of tomorrow did not exist just five years ago. But we are almost comfortable with the idea of a solar energy engineer or robot supervisor or body part printer. Now, how about a shoutcaster?

That’s someone who provides live commentary of a video game being streamed or displayed live. The name comes from having to shout over the sounds of gunfire, explosions and monsters screaming as they’re being shredded. And, of course, from sheer excitement as the action reaches climactic moments.

At the recent rAge gaming expo at the Dome north of Johannesburg, one could barely move without coming across a video game being fought on a huge cinema-style screen.

If that were not sensory overload in itself, the cacophony of shoutcasters keeping the audience up to speed on the strategies being played out made sure of it.

Often, the shoutcaster is something like a sports commentator, merely providing an additional soundtrack to the main action. Sometimes, though, they become one of the attractions.

Top shoutcasters are in demand across the world, and are able to build entire careers on this very particular skill.

Enter Sam Wright, South Africa’s first woman to become a full-time professional shoutcaster. She goes by the name Tech Girl, also the title of her tech blog for women.

She is both shoutcaster and host – a presenter in the “old-fashioned” sense of someone who introduces teams, interviews players and chats with experts while the game is on.

Fresh from hosting a tournament in Berlin, she is still startled by the speed at which it has all happened.

“My brother played competitively for years and his friends were always at our house playing,” she recalls. “I saw their passion and got upset that mainstream media wasn’t really focusing on the players, only offering up content about the rise of esports. I started making content on my own channels: silly videos, a few blog posts …

“A South African event asked me to host and that was followed up by a rather big offer from Telkom VS Gaming to host the 2016 rAge stage for their masters tournament, alongside international esports shoutcaster Paul ‘Redeye’ Chaloner.”

It was only her third ever “esports job”, and she saw it as “just having fun and messing around”. She didn’t see it as a career, but Chaloner had other ideas.

He told Sam to consider taking it more seriously. She met him again in London a few months later, in the course of her media role, and he offered to sign her to his talent agency, “but only if I put in the necessary hours”.

It was a big deal. Chaloner was the first shoutcaster in the United Kingdom, one of the first half-dozen in the world, and helped to define the role.

He is a regular visitor to rAge as an esports ambassador. He told us during this year’s event that, for him, it also started as “only a hobby”. It took four years before he was a professional – and 10 before it had become a career.

“You can compare South Africa today to where we were 10 years ago. You have a lot of good people here, a lot of people playing important roles, but the majority of them are doing it part-time.

“The pace of growth is much faster here than it ever was in the United Kingdom, though, so things will be better, faster, here than elsewhere.”

Four years ago he founded Code Red Esports, a talent agency dedicated to guiding talent and consulting to organisations. Wright, he said, is one of the agency’s success stories.

“Not because of us, but because of what she has done. We have events and sponsors coming to us for talent, because we are good at finding the right people to send. Sam was one of people I identified when I came three years ago.

“She was hard working, savvy, smart and understood that, if she wanted a career, she had to do it beyond South Africa. This country isn’t in a position to support full-time people in those roles just yet. She understood that much earlier than most people do.”

When Paul first sent her out, he says, she was doing third and fourth tier tournaments. Now, she is firmly in the lower rungs of the first tier, “getting gigs on her own rather than what we generate as an agency”.

After her second meeting with Paul, Sam went back to basics. She used the Internet and free tutorials and videos about broadcasting. She sought advice from Redeye and other esports commentators. She spoke to those who had turned it into a career. Finally, she secured her first “overseas” gig for Gamescom 2017.

“That first international hosting gig at Gamescom will always be a high point,” she says.

“Another high point for me was working on PUBG Europe League, Phase 3, recently. We filmed in Berlin and I came in to stage-host and interview teams for two weeks of the six-week competition. I had the chance to work with a host of broadcast talent I’ve looked up to and watched for years!”

She can barely believe that she is doing this for a living.

“I’m always overwhelmed that the work continues to come and I have this incredible opportunity to travel around the world talking about video games. I think some months I spend more time on planes, in airports and in new countries now than I do at home.”

Is it really a career?

When people asks Sam Wright whether they should pursue shoutcasting as a career, she is not falling over herself to encourage them.

“I try tell the truth: this is not a career in South Africa,” she says. “The industry is still too new and there aren’t enough opportunities to truly make it a career.

“I am a full-time esports commentator but the majority of my income is derived from working overseas at various events. I’d not be able to do this full time if I relied on the local industry. So that’s important to understand right from the start.

“It’s also a difficult field – there are hundreds of people around the world chasing the same dream and you need to put in ten times more work being so far away from the action. Your own content becomes your showreel and much of that content will be made off your own dime.

“Travelling is also tough. I was lucky because I had a British passport, but without that foreign passport you need to look at securing working visas for various regions and that will all need to come from your own pocket.”

She insists, though, that does not want to put anyone off choosing this path.

“It can be done, I’ve done it. Trevor ‘Quickshot’ Henry is a phenomenal voice and face of international League of Legends, and is also a South African, who moved to Europe. It isn’t impossible, but like any entertainment job, it really isn’t an easy ride. So if this is the career you want. you need to be aware of the mountain ahead.”

Industry pioneer Paul ‘Redeye’ Chaloner’s advice to prospective shoutcasters is  not very different to what one might tell gamers:

“You need to be incredibly passionate about what you do, whether commentary or hosting. You need unlimited passion because, at some point, you’re going to be challenged, from a monetary point of view, by real life issues like children, marriages and mortgages, and you will definitely be challenged by the community.

“It’s an incredible community, but we say what we think. You need a thick skin, and drive , ambition, tenacity, all before we talk about the main thing, the skill to do the job in the first place.”

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