You’re stuck in space now

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, it’s a little add-on to my last weeks article about Kerbal Space Program (KSP)[1]. Today I like to focus a little bit more on the realistic approach of the game and how the game brings its players closer to real world rocket science.

The first interesting fact I found out this week is that members of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab are playing KSP[2]. Workers in the field of science or engineering do have a lot of crazy ideas, they never would try in real life. However, KSP gives them an almost realistic framework to give these ideas a try. Thus it can be quite addicting trying out a new thought experiment or replay real world space missions.

Furthermore, I like to highlight the usability of real world calculations of orbital maneuvers in KSP. One of the ways of reaching other planets is using a Hohmann transfer orbit[3]. The calculations for this maneuver are working the same way in KSP as in real life[4]. Based on these formulas, a calculator[5] was created by Olexandr Savchuk of KSP to easily determine the values needed for an interplanetary flight.

Additionally, KSP can be used to explain how rocket design and staging does affect the performance of the space craft. As an example, I like to highlight the „advanced rocket design tutorial“ from Scott Manley[6]. During the video, Scott Manley is demonstrates different examples of rocket design and also links it to actual real world rockets.

Finally, KSP can be used to approach complex ideas like what would it take to reach the speed of light with a space craft (in KSP). This video is again made by Scott Manley[6], who explains what will be needed to accelerate to the speed of light.

You’re going to space today

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I’ll present the space travel simulation game „Kerbal Space Program“. The game is combining gamefulness with real world science and is thus increasing the interest in real world science.

Kerbal Space Program[1] (KSP) allows the player to create own space crafts and fly them afterwards through space. During gameplay players can manage their own space program, build orbital stations, land on other planets or moons and explore the vastness of space. At a first glance, this might sound quite trival, but after a short time of playing the game, it becomes clear that the game is more complex than it sounds.

View on Kerbin

KSP is based on real physics and thus creates a realistic simulation of space travel. After assembling the first space craft, the player can launch it from the space port and – hopefully – reach a stable orbit. However this isn’t easy to new players who possible do not much about space travel[2]. Just flying straight up (and not falling apart due to an constructional fault) won’t put the craft into orbit: it’ll only reach a maximum height and afterwards descend back to Kerbin (that’s the „Earth“ of the game). If the craft reaches a stable orbit around Kerbin, the gamer can start practicing basic orbital maneuvers: changing the inclination or increasing/decreasing the apoapsis/periapsis.

Finally the user has learnt the basics of controlling a space craft. But what about making a rendezvous with another craft? What about docking? Fortunately there’re many tutorials [3] how to perform a certain task. The next step could be the landing on an other celestial body–in most cases it’s on one of the two moons of Kerbin. In order to land on a moon, the space craft needs to reach it. Naturally this requires even more knowledge about space travel.

Successful landing on Minmus

Players who do have a deep knowledge about space travel can actually calculate their maneuvers. The whole game is based on math and physics[4]. Formulars of rocket science can be applied to calculate the delta-v of the assembled space craft[5].

The game does not give a clear goal. The latest version of it is a sandbox game allowing the players to set their own goals while exploring the solar system. However to successfully reach the own goals, the game is requiring a lot of knowledge about space travel. During my own gameplay I’ve learnt a lot about space flights and orbital maneuvers.

Map with focus on the Mün

The game follows the concept of two previously presented games[5] by setting the game in a scientific context and creating a realistic environment. Just by playing this game, gamers learn a lot about space travel and if they’re interested in doing things efficiently, they’ll start to look up calculations and procedures used in real world space travel.

In conclusion KSP is a great game that can also be categorized as edutainment software. Exploring space is a very interesting topic and has a lot of potential to connect gamefulness with real world science. In the end, this might lead to an increased overall interest in space travel and other sciences connected with it.

„Extended“ immersion

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I’ll present my own observations of the blurring between virtuality and reality evoked by an intense gameplay in combination with the use of realistic sounds.

This article is mostly based on my own observations and was supported by some let’s plays[1] I’ve seen[2]. During gameplay of certain computer games I experienced a certain degree of increased or extended immersion: the real world sometimes influenced my gameplay and intruded in it.

Typically because total immersion is very hard to achieve or even impossible[3], immersion starts to collapse if there’s an external distraction. Even if the immersion doesn’t collapse, the real world events are still recognized. Immersed gamers identify these external events as real world events and do have a clear distinction between game world and real world. Additionally players can be immersed into their game but as soon as they get a little bit distracted or lose their focus from the screen, the immersion can disappear.

However, certain games have in some point a very close and realistic connection to the real world. These „realistic“ games can to a certain degree swallow an external event. This leaves the player confused if something just has happened in the game or in the real world. The absorbtion of external events however has an important constraint: the event has to be off screen. This constraint makes clear that the absorbtion is based on realistic sounds. As soon as the event is visual, the effect doesn’t apprear.

A game has its setting in an urban environment and is thus simulating traffic. The recognition between game event and real world event can blur, if the sounds of the cars are made very realistic. Players can hear a car driving near by and conclude that there’s a car somewhere around them. However players can hear the sound of a real world car passing by and in case of a deep immersion start thinking that there’s a car in the game. As soon as the player has a visual on the event, the blurring between the two worlds will immediately collapse.

One very good example is the ARMA 2[4] mod „Day Z„[5]. ARMA 2 is a very realistic military simulation and thus has a lot of realistic connections to the real world. The zombie-survival modification „Day Z“ benefits a lot from this realism. It’s a very intense gameplay of staying alive in a post-apocalyptic world. One reason for that is the very good simulation of different sounds. Players are dependent on the sounds to identify potential dangers. Was someone shooting in this town? Is a vehicle approaching my position? Has a zombie seen me?

Normally, sounds of shots or zombies aren’t a part of our daily life. Passing vehicles however are pretty normal. One of the biggest dangers in Day Z are helicopters that are luckily audible from far away. Now things can start to blur. A player who’s deeply immersed by the intense gameplay is moving carefully through the wilderness. Suddenly the sound of a helicopter starts comming closer. The player starts to scan the sky to get a visual on the helicopter. After a short time of confusion, the player realizes that it was a real world helicopter just passing by.

If the gameplay is very intense, players can get deeply immersed into the game. In combination with realistic sounds, off screen events can start to blur the gap between reality and virtuality. However the „extended“ immersion will immediately collapse if the player has a clear visual on the event.

References

[3] Schweinitz, Jörg (2006): Totale Immersion und die Utopie von der virtuellen Realität, in: Neitzel, Britta; Nohr, Rolf F. (Eds.), Das Spiel mit dem Medium – Partizipation – Immersion – Interaktion, Marburg.

Science in games

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I’ll present an interesting method of experiencing science: playing it! I’ll present two simulations that allow users to experience and discover science from a very interesting point of view.

Science as a main topic in computer games isn’t very common. Often it’s science that evokes some terrible problems[1]. Typically, after something scientific went terrible wrong, the player is in charge to fix everything to save the world. But science doesn’t always cause problems. Sometimes science helps the player to research new items that are useful to survive the game. In this scenario, science has a minor role and functions as some kind of ressource[2]. Finally, there’re also games that use science as a key element to win the game: Civilization 5 can be won through a „science victory“[3]. However, players of Civilization don’t actively perform the research. They just choose the next research project that than is completed within a certain amount of turns.

But there’re also some games that do have science as their main topic. Universe Sandbox[4] is simulating gravitational forces of the universe. The player can add new planets to our solar system or change the properties of the sun. The game afterwards is simulating the gravity among the celestial bodies. By playing the game users can experience how the gravity of planets is effecting the path of asteriods, how a Earth centered solar system would work out or what happens if the sun suddenly has a weight of only 1kg. Additionally, it’s possible to change the simulation rate, making things faster and easier observable.

Just a test.

Some days ago, I’ve discovered the Take On Mars[5] project. This simulation game puts the player into the position of a rover operator. According to the short description of the game, players can experience science missions on Mars and discover the planet’s secrets using the tools of the rovers or landers. I wasn’t able to experience the game myself but it sounds very interesting to navigate a roboter on the Mars.

Naturally, both simulations aren’t completely accurate, but users are allowed to experience scientific facts themselves. Information about the facts presented in these two games are typically covered in the TV. Showing and explaining a simulation how an asteriod behaves is very informative. On the other hand, it’s only passive: interested people can’t manipulate the simulation to see what will happen.

Saturn

A gamified simulation of science however allows players to actively manipulate things. They can do observations on their own and start learning how things might work. Users are more involved in the whole learning process and might have an increased learning progress compared to a passive documentation. Furthermore, if users get interested in the particular science, they might want to know more about it. Finally, this could lead to an increased interest in science and the recent results.

Gaming emotions

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I’ll approach a complex topic: gaming emotions. I’ll try to describe the complex problem of real emotions caused by virtual entities and how they remain in the real world. What happens to the emotions after quitting the game? Is gaming friendship real friendship? I’m not sure, how I should approach this topic, so let’s find out.

Fotw #17 [1] was concluded with the idea that one of the main reasons for playing computer games are emotional rewards. Computer games offer a lot of opportunities to experience a lot of different emotions: happiness and pride after a strong enemy is defeated. The fear of getting ambushed by something unknown. Strong excitement just before looting a treasure. The pleasure of helping someone who is very thankful for the player’s efforts. etc.

But how can the intensity of these emotions be defined? The emotions are real, because players are happy, sad or scared. But how real do they are? Sneaking through a forest and fearing to be ambushed by something unknown in a game could be quite scary. However, the intensity of sneaking in the real world through a forest can’t be compared to a „safe“ virtual world. On the other side, as long as the player is immersed in the gameplay, the virtual forest feels like the real forest.

This applies to almost every other possible interaction a player can do in a computer game. Playing a racing game can be very intense. Winning a race after a hard battle for the first position can feel like winning a real Formula One Grand Prix. (Well, I’ve never experienced driving in the Formula One, so I hope it does. But I like to, so if any team chef is looking for a new driver, please consider this blog post as an application.) However, after quitting the game, there’s a break between the two realities. The player still has the emotions of winning a hard race but sees that it only happened in a racing simulation.

Apart from the experience of the environment, it’s hard to define the interpersonal emotions of a player in a virtual world as well. Interpersonal emotions in a computer game can have two different dimensions. Computer games can be differentiated into two main categories: singleplayer and multiplayer games. Interpersonal emotions in a singleplayer game are only emotions between the player–a human being–and virtual characters, who only exist in a particular game world. Multiplayer games do have also the opportunity of connecting two human beings in the same virtual world. Especially MMORPGs are excellent examples because these games foster social bondings among players.

Player-to-player relationships can be defined as an interpersonal relationship that is only taking place in virtual environments where players can interact with each other through an avatar. Like other media based communication, computer games can be seen as a platform to connect players from all over the world. This relationship is, apart from the fact that the players are only communicating through their avatars, like typical relationships among human beings. The emotions are real because they’re caused by real people. Additionally, these emotions and the friendship itself can exist without the game. The players can stay in touch through other games, chat-clients or even real life meetings.

Player-to-game character relationships are much more complicated to define. If the game design has created game characters that behave almost like human beings, express emotions and react towards the player’s action, then the player can start building up a certain kind of friendship towards these game characters. These game characters can accompany the player and thus increase the idea of friendship between them. The Mass Effect series [2] has created very realistic game characters and players can start building up friendships while playing the game.

As long as the players are immersed in the game and act as if they’re the avatar, these friendships seem to be real. But what if the player leaves the gaming environment? As said before, the emotions are real for the player. Considering this, the player-to-game character relationship must be real as well. However, if players have finished the game, they do not have any opportunity to stay in touch with their game character friends. Maybe player-to-game character friendships can be seen as relationship among colleagues: they last as long as the job connects them.

I think the complexity of the gaming emotions derives from the break between the two realities. The emotions survive the gap between the game world and the real world. The player still feels the emotions even after quitting the game. However, after quitting the game, the player isn’t immersed anymore and realises that it was just a game.

This leaves me–and hopefully you as well–with the still unanswered question: how real are real gaming emotions and how can they be defined?

Game spectatorship: Charity events

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the eighth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on a special use of streaming: creating charity events to support organizations.

As already mentioned in the previous e-sport spectator parts, watching live broadcasts is interesting, attracts many people and works world wide. Interested spectators from all over the world are able to follow the gameplay of one single player.

But live broadcasts aren’t just interesting for spectators that like to follow an expert player. Broadcasters with a high amount of viewers do have the opportunity to take advantage of their attention: they can gain the trust of their viewers and influence them. They can also use their audience to support other projects: they’re able to host charity events.

These events range from marathon gaming sessions [1] to competitions [2] between expert players. The aim of these events is to use the popularity of the broadcaster and the games that are played to attract as much viewers as possible. The attention of the users is used for fundraising for charitable trusts [3] or hospitals with a special focus [4]. Spectators do have the opportunity to donate some money to the particular charity events that goes directly to the supported organization.

In contrast to local fundraising events, gaming charity events do have one major advantage: they’re global. Spectators from all over the world can participate and support the event with a donation.

This can be illustrated with last years Dragon Soul Challenge [5]. Athene [6] had invited four popular and successful World of Warcraft guilds to compete against each other. The goal of each guild was to complete the Dragon Soul raid instance as fast as possible [7].

The charity event was a success [8]: Over 55.000 viewers watched the main stream (400.000 viewers followed the event in total) and over $16.000 were donated during the competition. To better compare the number of viewers: 50.287 fans can be seated in the Yankee Stadium [9].

Although there’ve been only few other big events, the example shows the potential of global charity events using the potential of streaming gameplay.

Comparability

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: A journey mostly ends with the presentation of a lot of pictures. A journey through a game world mostly ends with the credits … What might be the reason why there’s  almost no talking about the latest playthrough? How could these two different immersive experiences be compared? What makes it so hard to talk about the latest gaming experience?

Computer games are designed to be doable. There’s no uncertainty like doing a supersonic parachute jump from 128.100 feet [1]. There’re also no limitations which can prohibit the player from beating the game: the player doesn’t need to qualify to play a game. A computer game can be played as long as the challenge lasts and whenever the player likes to play it. Of course, the content in games like World of Warcraft can be adjusted (or „nerfed“) by the designers to make it more accessible for the majority of the users. In this case, some hard challenges might only have a certain life span.

Playing computer games can’t be compared to other media leisure activities. Watching tv is a passive activity: the recipient just follows the narration without doing anything actively. Reading a book isn’t passive, but does not allow the recipient to have influence on the outcome of the actions. The reader only enjoys the narration without being able to interact with it.
Gaming allows the player to follow the narration and to interact with it. Additionally, the player’s decisions can have a deep impact on the outcome of the narration. The player is immersed in the gameplay and has a deeper and more personal experience of the actions.

Considering this, computer games can be compared to special but regular activities: going on a hike, doing sports or any other complex activity. But even if it’s a great personal experience for players to beat a hard challenge, they don’t have anything in particular to share with their friends. In today’s life it has become common to take pictures of current activities and share it with friends over the internet. Furthermore, watching pictures and talking about the experiences has become a new leisure activity that adds an additional feature to the original activity: it now can be shared.

But what about computer games? Players can take screenshots while playing a game. But sharing in-game experience by sharing screenshots over the internet isn’t very common today. Additionally, while playing a game, players have to make difficult decisions or experience complex situations. If this would be easily comparable to the real world, many people might be interested in hearing about these experiences.

One reason might be the complexity of the games. Every game has different rules and requires a different gameplay. Things that might be easy in one game can be hard in an other game. Additionally, every game has its own rules and own background story. To understand the player’s experiences, it’s necessary to know all the important facts and rules about the particular game world. If some informations are lacking, it can be hard to understand the achievements of the player because there’s no relation to the real world.

Furthermore, it’s complex to understand all the things a player might have learnt during the gameplay. Often, it’s hard to compare human skill requirements in a computer game to human skill requirements of real world activities. Future (my!) research should achieve a better understanding between the real and the game world.

But even if gamers can’t share their experience or don’t have any real reward for their success, they’re still rewarded: the emotions during are a playthrough are real [2]. These emotional rewards are one of the main reasons for playing computer games.

Finally, presenting screenshots of the last game journey could be a new trend …

References:

[2] McGonigal, Jane (2011): Reality Is Broken, New York.

How much rng?

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: Turn-based strategy games can be quite challenging by using methods to create a certain randomness. Players have to adapt their strategies and don’t experience the same on a second playthrough.

Recently, I began with a new playthrough of XCOM – Enemy unknown[1] on the highest difficulty level (appropriately called „Impossible“ [2] difficulty) with „ironman“ [2] mode enabled. The ironman mode increases the difficulty by disabling the option to reload older savegames and the progress is automatically saved. By using this option all the player’s decisions are final for that particular playthrough. However, XCOM is a turn-based strategy game and thus requiring a thoughtful gameplay. Therefore, the ironman mode is mostly increasing the need for well considered decisions.

Headquarter

On impossible difficulty, the first phase of the game is the most important one. Doing something wrong during this period makes it harder to win the game or can even screw the whole playthrough. Considering this, the player is challenged to develop a strategy to survive the beginning of the game.
The game has four different aspects: Turn-based fights, research and development, base building and strategic planning. All these four aspects influence each other and need to be mastered to successfully play the game.

However, during the first month of the game, the player is short on funds and there’re only three ways of increasing the player’s funds: Completing missions, receiving new funds at the end of a month or selling rare resources (the worst way of making money). The amount of fundings is increased by protecting the nations of the XCOM Project [3].
If the player wants to protect a nation, they need to build a satellite and place it above the particular nation. This is an expensive process, especially during the first month. Additionally, at the end of the first month, the player is in danger of loosing four nations, if they haven’t build four satellites. This leaves the player with only one option: building four satellites until the end of the first month is the only strategy to survive the first month without losing any nation.

Nations of XCOM

This strategy requires the right choices and the luck to receive the first three missions of the game within the first 15 days of the game [4]. If the player is unlucky and only receives two missions, they might have a second chance and gather enough resources to sell during these two missions. However, this isn’t granted at all.
In conclusion, the player has only one strategic option to keep every nation in the XCOM Project. The game on the other hand is very random. As mentioned before, the player can be unlucky and doesn’t receive all the resources needed for the ideal strategy.

The fortune of the player is determined by the random-number-generator (rng) [5] of the game. Among other things, the rng determines the dates of the missions and the resources gathered by completing a mission. Rng can be implemented through an pseudo-random number generator algorithm that can create a sequence of numbers without almost no pattern [6].

Adding randomness to a game can help a virtual world seem more real [7]. The Player isn’t experiencing the same during a new playthrough and there’s no right strategy to play the game successfully [5]. Additionally, the gameplay of strategy games can benefit from unpredictable events: the player has to adapt their strategy.
However, the rng only works well, if there’re enough ways to win the game by changing the strategy. As mentioned before, XCOM has only one ideal strategy but uses the rng.

Naturally, the game isn’t lost, if the player loses some nations after the first month, but it gets even harder for the player to survive. There’s no way of adapting the strategy because the development of the player’s base is determined by the available fundings. Additionally, the difficulty of the game increases every month by sending new and stronger aliens against the player.

To wrap things up, rng keeps the game fresh [5], if there’re enough ways to succesfully play the game. However, if the game uses rng but only has one ideal strategy, the player might lose the game without any chance to prevent their doom.

[5] Brathwaite, Brenda; Schreiber, Ian (2009): Challenges for Game Designers, Boston.

[7] Perry, David; DeMaria, Rusel (2009): David Perry on Game Design: A Brainstorming Toolbox, Boston.

Game spectatorship: Twitch client implemented in CoH2

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the seventh part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on the internal twitch.tv client of „Company of Heroes 2“.

Company of Heroes 2 (CoH2), a real-time strategy game, was released this week on June 25th. But it’s not the release of the game itself I want to talk about. It’s one litte feature implemented in CoH2: It has an own twitch.tv broadcasting client.
Typically, to broadcast the own gameplay over twitch.tv, the user has to install a small broadcasting client. This client captures the video and sound output of a game and streams it over the user’s twitch.tv channel.
The developers of CoH2 implemented this feature directly into the game. The user just has to connect CoH2 to their twitch.tv account to broadcast the own gameplay.

CoH2 Twitch Client

But what makes this internal streaming client so special? From my point of view, it indicates that game developers become aware of the importance of broadcasting gameplay. As already discussed in this spectatorship series, watching other player’s gameplay is entertainment for various reasons. But from the point of view of a game company, gameplay broadcasts are cost-free advertisement.

If the gameplay seems to be entertaining, interested players might buy the game and start playing it themselves. By allowing all active players to broadcast their gameplay without having the issue of setting up a broadcasting software, the game company might increase the numbers of broadcasting players. This approach could result in an increased amount of spectators who might get interested in playing the game.

Game spectatorship: Spectating tournaments

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the sixth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on the spectatorship of tournaments: Spectators are sitting on a tribune and watching their favorite players performing on a stage.

I’ve listed four ways of spectating computer games in the first part of the spectator series. However, one additional method should be discussed: Watching competitive gameplay live in the arena during a tournament.

Major tournaments and grand finals, like the Grand Final [1] of the World Cyber Games (WCG) [2], are taking place in exhibition and convention centers. Typically, these events are taking place on a stage in front of a tribune. Several computers are set up on the stage and thus are creating the playing field. The stage itself provides a huge screen allowing all the spectators to watch the matches between the players. Finally, the gameplay is spectated and commentated by a commentator.

This kind of spectating gameplay is comparable to watch a sport event in a stadium. Apart from enjoying the gameplay, most of the entertainment derives from spectating in a crowd [3]. Fans are cheering for their favorite players and a excellent gameplay is honored with applause.

These live events do also have a social and a society aspect. Spectators can see the attending expert players performing live and walking around on the venue. Additionally, depending on the country and the interest in e-sports of the society [4], these tournaments evoke a huge media coverage.

However, the two main spectator personas of this spectatorship series, can’t benifit much from visiting these events. Watching these live events can be almost compared to watching live broadcasts [5]: The Interested hasn’t ever played the game. Thus the fast paced gameplay of expert players could blur the impression of the avarage gameplay of the game.
The Pupil likes to improve its own gameplay and analyze the tactics of the expert players. Like watching a live broadcast, the Pupil can’t pause the action and rewatch critical situations. However the commentator might provide some useful information.

[3] Cheung, Gifford; Huang, Jeff (2011): Starcraft from the stands: understanding the game spectator, in: CHI 2011 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 763 – 772.