Analyst Dmitry "LighTofHeaveN" Kupriyanov has nearly vanished from the pro scene after The International 2021 for Dota 2. The commentator was removed from the Russian-language broadcast studio and thereafter worked on smaller events. In an interview with eScoreNews, the caster shared thoughts on Valve's ban, views on the current state of studios and community casting, and also talked about media personality archetypes.
Let's go over the latest patch in 'Dota' — what has changed after the update?
— Different hero and item combinations. For example, Revenant's Brooch has been completely nerfed — heroes that synergize with this artifact will be seen less frequently than before. Valve has been tweaking stats back and forth for many years, and people adapt. Conclusion: the tactic works. Many characters will emerge, synergizing with new artifacts. Right now, everyone will be testing and experimenting with this. Without major changes, nothing particularly significant is expected.
— A deep analysis in my case isn't worth it because I don't work on Dota events as often now. When a new patch comes out, I slowly ease into it.
— The fact that you're working less on Dota events — does it make you sad, or doesn't affect you much?
— Due to what's happening in the world and primarily because of sanctions, there are indeed fewer Dota events. The Russian esports market is changing overall, priorities are shifting to other disciplines, and it's a natural process. You can't say that Dota doesn't exist in the Russian market now. It does, as does work in this discipline, it's just that there's a minimal amount compared to previous years.
— I spend a lot of time on various books now, simultaneously taking two courses that I ideally want to finish by the end of the year. There's too much material, so I'm not getting bored.
— I'd say it's a plus for me. I'm using this time for myself. It'll take another two years to finish what I've started. I'm sitting here and slowly developing, leveling up. Distributing and developing skill points in the talent tree.
— And what about skill points?
— It's a secret. As practice has shown, it's better not to talk about oneself and keep it secret, and then in the future, if skills come in handy somewhere — great.
— Did you ever consider joining FISSURE or Paragon when RuHub didn't have many tournaments going on?
— Considering that those studios are located in other countries — no. Moving permanently to Almaty, Yerevan, or Serbia isn't particularly appealing, and that's what the studios want. Many have started working in other countries, which is a normal practice in this situation. But I never wanted to. The prospect of moving to another city doesn't attract me much because, for me, Moscow is one of the best cities on Earth, with too many opportunities. So, it's best to make use of those opportunities.
There's no desire to become a nomad — for that, you need very good conditions, and it's not particularly feasible or worthwhile. But I think it doesn't even make sense to offer such an option to FISSURE and Paragon because they're slowly taking over the esports market.
— Essentially, the market is an oligopoly now — how does that affect content and the scene as a whole?
— Competition is actively developing in the market now, and that's already good for progress. It used to be a completely different situation: all the rights were either with RuHub, and then Maincast was idle, or vice versa. This didn't lead to much development: everyone just sat, worked, and didn't worry too much because the workload was always clear.
Then, in the absence of competition as such, progress in terms of presentation, content, and technical solutions was minimal. But what about now? In addition to the competing studios themselves, particularly Paragon and FISSURE, betting companies like Winline and BetBoom are also entering the forefront of esports, actively exploring the market and already hosting their own tournaments in collaboration with organizations.
It's good that there's more than one player in the market, and they periodically raise their prices. Plus, other players are also starting to pay attention. With the cancellation of the DPC, there are many more opportunities. PGL announced tournaments for several million dollars, and ESL is following suit. 1win organized a tournament for $100,000, with a very solid lineup of participants. Even such an event, which goes on online for 3-4 days, turned out to be very difficult to fit into the schedule simply because everything else is already booked. This is very good for the market. I believe the more players, the better.
— Do you not feel that before there was studio-to-studio competition, but now it seems like studios are competing with community casters?
— Well, listen, name the community casters: NS, Nix, TpaBoMaH — they're all BetBoom... If you look at part of the picture, it seems like NS and Nix are competing with FISSURE. If you look at the whole picture, it seems to me that BetBoom is competing with BetBoom, just in different formats. With the new rules for those community casters who don't belong to the bookmaker that bought the rights to the tournament, competition has long since died out. Hello, NS and Nix, good luck competing in casting ESL tournaments with their rules.
— Formally yes, they're under contract, but they stream on their channels from DotaTV, so they're community casters.
— What's the difference? Suppose NS takes the key from the FISSURE channel and starts streaming there. It's all the same: him, JotM, Stray...
— At least the studio is unlikely to allow such a format on their channel, there's censorship there.
— Well, alright. In that case, yes, I believe that community casts are much more mobile and versatile than official casts. Although both require adhering to certain conditions during broadcasts. Working in a studio implies greater responsibility for what is said and done, but a community caster also bears no less responsibility working for themselves. In the former case, the employee works for the company and is accountable to it, while in the latter, they are accountable to themselves, as any mistake could lead to a loss of status and income sources.
Though I work in the official cast, personally, I prefer to listen to Nix or NS in my free time. They express themselves straightforwardly in any situation. In my view, community casting is the format of the future because official broadcasts, in my opinion, are now beginning to be rigidly controlled and regulated, and I would like to see more content and interesting solutions.
But it should be noted that in official broadcasts recently, one thing has become stronger — play-by-play. Pbp commentators have a better voice setup, and they narrate many engagements better. And importantly, studios that have bought the rights to many tournaments have a huge advantage in terms of the absence of delay.
— Did you ever consider starting your own streaming, organizing your own community cast?
— Not now, for sure. In the next 2 years, there are other tasks at hand. If I were to do this, it would need to be done permanently, 24/7. Nix and NS are big workers in this regard. If you remember how they started and how much commentary and work they did... It's a job where you need to be on the air for 10-12 hours, and I'm a fairly lazy creature by nature for that.
If anything similar were to come from me, it would be only at a minimum. In the best case scenario — cover one or two matches, and then call it quits immediately. I have great respect for people who commentate on matches where everything is clear from the early minutes of the game. Grubby eloquently expressed that playing such matches is torture. Because in his discipline and many others, there's a surrender function to the opponent when there's no desire to continue playing.
Another question is, what to do with the audience? It's necessary to entertain them, and create content regularly. This is enormous work that is preferably put on a "conveyor belt."
It reminds me of a squirrel on a wheel. Now, Nix is gradually getting out of this state, trying to only cast the most interesting matches. And NS still has the energy to keep going. I'm not ready for that yet.
— If we recall the timeline of your work, TI10 was the brightest episode, after which you were unofficially added to the "blacklist," and the list of tournaments was not very extensive. Is there life for a caster after such a shadow ban?
— As you can see, yes.
— How much did that situation affect you?
— Overall, I don't really care, because, as we see, such a situation is brewing in the world now, and it's unclear when it will be possible to go somewhere. They want to hold TI in Denmark, and their representatives are proposing to do everything possible to prevent Russian players from participating.
It's clear that many of us are not in a very good position because we supposedly have a "blacklist" — for some, esports life ends there, but with the arrival of Arab investors and other organizations, options emerge.
If we simplify and conditionally: before, there was a comrade who controlled the talent and personnel recruitment, but with the advent of bookmakers and other studios, it's evident that his influence has diminished significantly. Now, not only does he select talents for The International, but studios also participate in this by submitting lists for events.
In my case, things changed a little — I don't go to The International anymore, but I don't care. Well, the fact that studios have an unwritten rule not to work with people from the blacklist — it's a natural situation. For provocateurs like me, it's quite healthy that not everyone likes us. The same thing happened to Shcherbakov, when he started his journey, but Martirosyan and Slepakov didn't crush him. He found those who liked him and pursued his favorite activity. Personally, I still have things to do, which is very pleasing.
— After that incident, you seem to have disappeared from the media space — even the "Strangler" releases stopped. There's a person — and then there isn't, why did this happen?
— We had the DPC, we covered it — and I was in the media field. There was also that TI. There, I was simply offered to shoot some footage and try out a segment. Lex, Adekvat were also shooting something — it was an experimental option.
I didn't disappear from the media space, I just had little Tier-1 work. If there were tournaments, they were Tier-2. And for the same reason, I became less noticeable and appeared less frequently on screen.
— Figuratively speaking, until recently, Paragon also didn't have many tournaments, but Maelstorm has their own Telegram channel, and he's constantly around somewhere...
— There are many nuances as to why at some point I stopped doing media work. On Twitch, I grew the channel to about 200k subscribers, and in the times of TIs, I even made it to the top 10.
At a specific moment in life, many things happened, and I had to pause streaming. If I were to return, again, only under the condition that it would be a conveyor. There's a content production store that works every day, 24/7. And there's one that opens for 2 days, then takes a week off, or even disappears for some time. If you're the latter, people will simply stop coming to you when there are alternatives.
I have less energy and desire to do something similar now. I was younger before, a bit different. Time goes by — and people change.
— Take Solo, for example, who recently returned to streaming after a long time. He streams rarely but still gathers an audience.
— He just has that personality type. He's a sweetheart, his stats are good. When considering the personality of a streamer, some people have very good characteristics: they simply appear on screen, and everyone already likes them. Then some people appear on screen, just scream, and create aggressive content, but others like it. Right now, we have Golovach — many people like him. In my view, people like these have either a talent or a good predisposition to press the button and gather a huge audience.
And then there are people like me, for example, whose talents are tens of times less. That's why I don't see much sense in entering the streaming field, where there will be another 50 people in front of you who will gather the audience much better.
Also, it's not very clear what content to generate. Some Dota matches are not particularly interesting to me personally. I don't know if it's worth getting into this story. But we'll see with time, for now, who knows.
Right now, I sincerely envy all the people who are such sweethearts, and even if they don't do anything, just look into the webcam — they're already liked by a bunch of people. I envy even more those people who have a tremendous talent for cool interaction with the audience. For example, a good example is Maddyson, one of the most powerful streamers. He undoubtedly has his own format, and, as we know, this character is not without sin, has been involved in many scandalous stories, and so on... But over time, he has rehabilitated himself.
However competing with them is very difficult because if you're not at the top, the algorithms won't push you onto the recommended page. Many people won't even know that you're streaming. As a result, we have a privileged group of people. Roughly speaking, these are 5% of streamers who have everything great, and then there are 95% — ordinary workers who have 50-60 viewers, nobody notices them. It's just like in real life.
— You mentioned that you somewhat envy the cute and charming ones, who are pleasant to watch. But don't you think that the audience often prefers to watch scandalous personalities?
— It's interesting, but to a smaller number of people. Some people are sweethearts. These people easily fit in anywhere. They come into any structure or organization, and others like them — it's pleasant and comfortable to communicate with them. These people are not critics, not provocateurs. And they don't even have to do anything. Even if they don't work on themselves, they will still fit in well anywhere.
And then there are predators, like me. You know, those natural-born provocateurs who just enjoy running around, provoking left and right, criticizing someone. There are even generations of critics. If you pay attention to the comments on websites, there's a generation of critics — they skillfully ridicule just about anything.
The last time I yelled was when Illidan gave his point of view on the topic of what Spirit needs. The first comment under this news: "The last thing Spirit needs is advice from Illidan."
Or Dakak, for example — he's not exactly like us, but he's very similar in some characteristics. That's why he didn't quite fit into teams. By nature, he's a predator who isn't particularly welcome in a pack because sooner or later, there will be a brawl.
As we can see, some critics succeed, but imagine how many people of similar nature, at best, express themselves in comments.
— So, NS and Nix are also predators by nature, and that's why they succeed as individual community casters?
— Yarik is definitely from my predator pack. We love to speak the truth, tease, criticize, and Valve definitely doesn't like that. But if you compare me to NS and Nix, I would say they're simply more talented than me in most aspects.
Not all predators are the same. Some predators have sharp fangs, and a great physique, they run fast, and fight well, while others lack half of what's needed for hunting. In my case, it's not the luckiest setup — I'm a rare species. There are indications that the situation will improve over time, but right now, comparing me to Nix and NS in terms of potential as a solo community caster isn't fair.
Dakak, if anything, is also a predator, but I think he wasn't quite lucky with his settings. Because ideally, his settings should be thrown into streaming and everything else. He'll play in a team, he has that drive, but it'll be much harder for him to realize himself by ten thousand times. One person sails on a ship — they have a favorable wind all their life, while another encounters tornadoes, and hurricanes — that's Dakak's case.
On the one hand, we're born and we're all equal, but there are always those who are more successful. Some characters are born winners, and there are people who, even if they work hard and try all their lives, are unlikely to achieve much. There are videos on this topic.
So when they say that everything depends on you... Well, not really — much is already decided from the beginning. I'm very interested in analyzing people: how they're structured, how to effectively interact with them, and everything else. Everyone has their data.
Also, somewhere, machines are gradually replacing humans, and in my opinion, there's no reason to get into activities where you're inferior to others because dismissal is a matter of time. If other people or machines are more talented, it's better not to interfere there.
There's a concept called natural selection, however harsh it may sound. So if you're even slightly inferior to someone in something, automatically, through dismissal or your understanding of what's happening, you fall out of the pool of winners, and you have to look for new options for things where you would be good again.
— It's like in esports, it works the other way around. People who were fired or who left often become much more successful.
— There's a gradation: someone earns a thousand dollars, someone earns ten. For me, for example, interest in the matter is the most important thing. And then, for it to also bring in a decent income. The education I'm currently pursuing pleases me — and no income at the moment.
Let's take my career in Dota: before the second TI, we had a salary of around $100-200. I played simply because I liked it. Back then, the buttons were interesting, the heroes, and everything else. In Dota, I studied heroes to have them better than anyone else. Over time, it got boring, and I stopped playing.
— How do you currently view the state of studios — do you like what's happening in the Russian-speaking cast?
— The old broadcasts, when there was less control and censorship, were more fun. Currently, in official analysis, there's nothing that makes you go, "Wow, come and see."
Perhaps these boring rules of official casting are written somewhere on tablets, but honestly, I've never seen them anywhere. In my opinion, it's time to change them because they limit and confine within certain, albeit vague, boundaries.
Because of this, we now see such a picture: studios, with many talents and huge resources — not to mention the money spent on rights and production — are less mobile compared to guys who just sit down, start streaming, and capture the audience with their charisma and great interaction. Both groups follow the conditions of the broadcasts, but the difference is still huge.
— What would you suggest doing? Completely get rid of the studio analysis format or somehow rework it?
— I would add more flexibility to the format. Watching analysts who fit the entire broadcasting process into fixed rules doesn't always look natural. At the same time, someone like Nix starts joking around in a cool way. Another interesting example is "Starperhub," where they show everything that happens behind the scenes, which generates real interest.
There are analysts on screen, and there are people behind the scenes who watch the match and chat among themselves. That's the coolest moment of our work because there, people speak more informally and straightforwardly. And then they come on screen and speak differently, it's understandable why — in a live broadcast of a major studio, it's quite easy, without any malicious intent, to say something offensive and put yourself, colleagues, and partners in a tough spot; it happens. But I think if they showed more of what's happening behind the scenes, it would be a thousand times funnier and more interesting for the audience. And "Starperhub" recreates such an atmosphere very organically.
— What are your immediate plans and projects?
— There's nothing particularly grand on the horizon for my main job at the moment. So I'm fully immersed in my studies while I have the time. Right now, my main plan is to find a place where I can realize my talent, if I even have one.
— But is it necessary to be talented to succeed?
— Many believe that if you do something you enjoy, it will bring success, or at least enough to get by. But overall, the situation is much sadder. The number of slots for various activities is also limited. Some company needs 10 programmers, and they don't need the 11th. If a person falls short even by one point, they'll have to work for another company or pursue a different path.
Someone goes to The International and will earn well, like Ephey, while someone else will at best get a thousand dollars and always remain in the shadows, despite their efforts.
Many people don't have the best indicators for a competitive environment. I used to believe that you just need to do what you love, and everything will be fine. But natural selection is much harsher. For many, the situation is such that they have to do what they don't like, and only in that case can they live and reach the level of "doing what I want and making a profit." However, even then, it's not guaranteed that a person will settle well in life. I wish good luck to those who find themselves in less favorable positions.