Celebrity Spotlight: Interview with The Capitalist of joinDOTA

Forum » News » Celebrity Spotlight: Interview with The Capitalist of joinDOTA 5 posts - page 1 of 1

Hello members of DOTAFire! This is my interview with Austin "Capitalist" Walsh, most of you maybe know him from the joinDOTA streams where he's casting next to TobiWan, I was lucky enough to get in touch with him, he answered some interesting questions for us, hope you all will like them!

Recently, Capitalist started casting by himself, being joined by other co-casters, he's now considered a main caster, make sure to check him out and support him if you haven't already, he's a great personality of the DotA 2 world!

Make sure to support him by visiting and following his fan pages:

For how long have you been playing DotA ? ( both DotA 1 and 2 )

I have played DotA almost since the beginning. I started playing Warcraft 3 shortly before Frozen Throne, and started playing right after Frozen Thrones release.

What do you enjoy the most about this wonderful game?

The near-infinite amount of complexity to it. I mean, if you just look at it from just a draft perspective almost every game is unique. Then you have the laning choices, item choices, specific strategies, when you combine all these things together, it makes every game beautifully complex and unique.

You are best known for streaming and casting next to TobiWan, how did you two start casting together?

I originally started when I noticed Toby did not have a co-caster for a certain tournament. At the time I was talking to my good friend Chappy about how odd it was the most popular personality could not find a co-caster. Chappy suggested me to Toby and he graciously brought me on for the first time.

Besides being a DotA 2 caster, is there anything else you work as?

Every member of the jD crew has multiple jobs outside of their basic job description. Both Toby and I have responsibilities outside of just being a commentator (though Toby has much more than I do). When I first joined, I put together our community caster project and run that now, ensure payment for our co-casters and community talent, as well as work closely with Soe in producing our YouTube content on our joindotaplus channel.

The International 2014 has finally ended, what do you think about the event itself? Were the past Internationals better?

The event itself was amazing and am really looking forward to seeing what happens next year as eSports continues to grow exponentially. While it has become a meme, "Still better than TI4 finals" I think most of the games from the tournament were interesting, though not as climactic as previous renditions. My only personal change I hope to see in the future is that we have more than just 2 pairs of casters for the main event, but that is obviously a very selfish wish as it is the only way I will ever get to work the main event :P

What do you think about the grand winners, Newbee? Not many thought that they are going to hold this year's Aegis. Which team did you personally support?

This year was an incredibly hard year to predict and think it really shows how the increased competition from year to year has really forced all the tier 1 teams to work much harder. The result was an even-ing of the playing field as I believe that the tournament easily could have gone much differently. There is no longer that big of skill discrepancy between the teams in the finals and those that placed 8th or below and I think that makes the sport that much more exciting and interesting. I personally though Newbee would be a strong contender, but I did not expect Vici Gaming to do as well as they did despite cheering for them. I personally supported DK because those guys are all awesome. The other team I was really rooting for was Evil Geniuses because growing up as a player & commentator in the American scene, we've never had much hope of taking an International title as we did with EG. It was refreshing to get excited about a squad that was primarily from my home region, instead of cheering for an international squad that just happened to have one or two NA players like in the past. That being said, I do not get too wrapped up in supporting one team or another, I just want to see close games with top-notch plays, more than anything else.

It looks like the LANs hosted on stadiums have had great success so far, do you feel that all the upcoming LANs should be hosted on stadiums?

Not every LAN should be hosted in a stadium, but I do believe that hosting in stadiums is the future for the most part. Esports is becoming a bigger and bigger spectator sport & fans want to be able to attend these events in person and get a chance to meet their favorite players & personalities. As it became more popular, naturally the only place to do this is in stadium events in order to accommodate the mass number of people who want to attend. That being said their is always a market for smaller, more personal LAN events like Homestory Cup.

You are doing great as a caster, we are all admiring your work, is there any tips you can give to the people who want to start or improve their casting?

Talented. Lucky. Hardworking. Right now you need two of those to make it IMO, possibly all three. For example, I look at myself as being the latter two. I did not have radio broadcasting experience or a golden voice like Ayesee, and I did not make it in during the Dota 1-> Dota 2 transition like Toby or LD. Instead, I was just slogging it away in the trench with many other amateur casters for a long time. I started commentating in HoN/Dota 1 in early 2010 and I did not really hit my lucky break until early 2013. If it was not for certain people in my life helping me out, & Toby giving me a chance and seeing potential in me, I would still be casting from home as a hobby and for that I am eternally grateful. So rather than try and give advice, I am going to just dampen people;s hopes and dreams right away because the brutal truth is that there are literally hundreds of other hardworking & talented amateurs hungry for a full-time job in eSports as a personality and there;s only enough space for a handful. If you really want to become a caster, my words won;t help you or hurt you. You will simply be so obsessed with pushing forward and improving that you;ll already be doing all the things I can tell you. If you;re waiting for some magical bit of advice or tip you have to do to have a shot at making it, you will be waiting for a very long time :D And thank you for the kind words :)

Are you going to attend the upcoming LANs from Romania, which are Dreamhack Masters Bucharest and D2CL?

I will be going to several LAN events in the future, including the upcoming ESL ONE New York event, but Bucharest will not be one of them, I believe. Super excited to be doing all these LAN events this year though, as ESL One was the only LAN event we did during the pre-TI4 season. Post-TI4 is completely the opposite :)

What is your opinion on post The International team shuffle? Is it a good idea that players spread up and try something else or teams should always stick together?

I do believe that this shake up is necessary for the scene, as the scene was beginning to get a bit stale. Retiring players in China means openings for players in a hungry amateur scene to join Tier 1 teams, while the roster swaps in the West bring openings for full amateur squads to rise to the helm during this shaky time.

More and more DotA 2 veterans are retiring, giving the chance to other younger players to rise and shine, what do you feel about this? Do you think we will see new faces at the next competitions?

Well I guess my answer from that last question leads to this one :) I can say that my time as a competitive player in Dota 1/HoN/Dota 2 taught me that having connections and being friends with the right people in the scene can be just as important as player skill, communication & your ability to work in a team. This is due to several factors, including the games complexity, how important teamwork is & the presence of a very old, die-hard community. I do not believe that this barrier is a good thing though, as it makes it very hard for newer competitive players to make it to the top despite having all the necessary skills. New talent is important for the scene, and not just to keep things interesting, but to continue to drive new ideas and gameplay. As the game has become more open to new talent in the last year or so, we are beginning to see a rise of fresh faces and I believe this trend will continue heavily over the next year.

Which is the main problem the DotA 2 community is facing right now? Is there a way to fix it?

Hmmm, the main problem? I would say the biggest problem in the professional scene is how top-heavy the financial layout is. The top 3 teams in the world stand to make a life-changing amount of money over the course of a year. The top 10 teams make enough to play full-time and still live comfortably. Below that level though, teams are fighting for scraps and being unable to commit full-time to playing the game. A lot of this is due to the priority on tournament payouts and not enough on salary. Despite the money in eSports growing exponentially over the last few years, player salaries have not risen accordingly and that poses a threat to the dynamism of the scene.

The map creator has just been released, now players can create their own unique maps, heroes and game-modes, do you think this will increase the popularity of our beloved game?

YES 100%. The greatest thing about playing Dota 1 is that when you got frustrated or bored with the game, you would not go anywhere. Instead you would just play some of the amazing custom games the community made. How many of you guys out there ended up buying a Warcraft 3 disc solely because you lost your old one and wanted to play custom games?

Goblin Techies. Yes or no?

YES PLEASE IM A PROFESSIONAL TECHIES PLAYER VALVE GIEF

That's about it, is there something else you;d like to tell to your fans and our DOTAFire community? Maybe any shotout? We all appreciate the amounts of time and effort you put into your work!

Shoutout to three who played the biggest part in me becoming a professional caster- Insane.Rabbi, Chappy & Toby. Big thank you to those that had to put up my **** while I pursued my dream & helped support me anyway, you know who you are. Lastly a big thanks to all my fans (I still cannot believe I can say that word) for being behind me 100% and sending me kind words or coming up to me at LAN events, I am incredibly humbled by your support.

I'd like to thank Capitalist for spending time and effort into answering our questions! We wish you luck in your DotA 2 career, keep up the great work, we all support you!

Message me if you'd like to join our official Discord server!