Pokémon Holding Open Auditions for Commentators
The Pokémon Company International is looking for more commentators who can support Evan (plaid), Scott, Josue (Crimz) and Josh (TheJWittz) as commentators at large events like the Pokémon National and World Championships! They’re holding open auditions for US residents allowing players above the age of 18 to send in an audition video via YouTube for either Pokémon X & Y or the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
You can submit your video as either solo or with a partner. You should title it on YouTube as Play! Pokémon Commentary Audition: [YOUR NAME]. Once you do, send an email to auditions[at]pokemon.com with the following info:
Subject: Commentary Audition for [YOUR NAME]
Name:
TCG or Video Game:
Audition YouTube link:
Pokémon event experience:
Additional comments:
Send your video no later than April 21st, 2014 and remember that this is an audition, not a contest. TPCi reserves the right not to select anyone from the pool of entrants. Commentators will be judged based on variety of factors, including (but not limited to) appearance, announcing eloquence, composure, brand knowledge, and play knowledge. You will need to be available the weekends of both the US National Championships and World Championships to be eligible, though if selected your travel costs will be covered.
Good luck players to everyone who auditions and share your audition tapes with us as well in the comments below!
About the Author
Firestorm is one of the co-founders of Nugget Bridge and the Community Manager for eSports Tournament Platform Battlefy. He has been playing Pokémon since 1999, competitively since 2007, and attending tournaments since 2010. He lives in Vancouver, Canada with a degree in Interactive Art & Technology + Communications. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushanshekar.
Related Posts
Nugget Bridge Update →
GS Cup Announced as Pokémon’s 2016 Ruleset →
2016 Pokémon World Championships Date & Location Surfaces →
NPA News: Season 4, Week 1 →
45 Responses to Pokémon Holding Open Auditions for Commentators
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You have to give up your spot. This is for US residents only.
Strictly US residents only? Or NA, including Canada? If the former, then I guess no chance for me XP
It says US residents only on Pokemon.com
So no Canada.
scott was allowed to play until he had to drop to deal with other things
no idea what they’ll do this year now that this is pre-planned. if you play you will likely have to drop no matter what.
Basically I got to play Swiss and none of Worlds last year, and would imagine commentators would be able to play Day 1 Swiss this year and none of Worlds again, but don’t know for sure
I would like to see something like this for the UK nationals!!! cuz I’d love to try out
I also am very against the age limit. I think it would be cool to have some younger players like myself commentating. it would be cool in my opinion to have senior division age players to commentate seniors and juniors division players to commentate juniors so that they can relate more to the players due to their similar age.
i don’t think they’re going to get 9 year olds to cast and provide commentary. the mental image is pretty cute at least. there are a few things wrong with that post but i’ll let them slide
Ethically they would have to not only pay for a minor’s travel costs but also a chaperon’s. Legally they would probably have to go through the minor’s parents, which can easily lead to some issues because of kids who submit themselves for these things without their parents’ permission.
Awww, I’d have had a go at this if it wasn’t US only, it’s nice to have a backup plan. I love a good Brit commentary.
DOZZ IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE
I will send in an audition actually, i love comentating and have friends who comentate for EVO and Leag of legends
Happy to see open auditions!
RECOMMENDATIONS: be yourself, speak clearly, don’t get caught up explaining every little thing, KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
the last one is the most important thing. Think about who you’re casting towards. This stream isn’t for Nugget Bridge regulars. It’s for the general public. Things that you think are common knowledge are not. the people who are watching this cast are people who played RBY and GSC growing up but haven’t thought about the game since. They’re the people who watched the Twitch Plays Pokemon stream but have no idea what VGC is. They’re the people who maybe casually play singles but have no experience with Doubles.
I’ve read a lot about my casting and how it dumbs things down too much. That’s the point. Everyone reading this post right now is the 1% of people who understand not just competitive Pokemon, but competitive DOUBLES Pokemon. Don’t overthink yourself.
Good luck, friends!
Yo, we becoming eSports now?!?
On another note, I wonder how this will turn out to be. The commentary from Scott and Evan on 2013 was definitely miles better than the ones provided from 2012. The information provided with the duo made me more interested with VGC. Eventually, I transitioned from Black 2 / White 2 Smogon OU to VGC in X/Y. It’s a metagame step I took and never looked back, especially considering the people I battled from the Nugget Bridge Major and Lives are people I should never take lightly. To me, that is a huge comparison from battling random people in Pokemon Showdown during B2 / W2. I would hope that the people who are qualified for the position of commentators are able to do what Scott and Evan did. That would be simply getting their audience interested and informed. With that, I would hope that the video game tournament scene will grow and become more developed over time. That’ll be all I’ll say on my view. I just hope that whenever Swagger is used, the commentators will not try their hardest to be utterly ridiculous.
Hey guys, I wanted to add one thing here:
I’ve gotten quite a large amount of PMs for help with this stuff, and I’m sure many more other people are working on this stuff, too. That’s really great — it is good there is so much interest. I want to urge everyone not to focus to much on the end result of whether or not you get hired this year too much. Pokemon is likely going to be very picky — we represent a pretty significant risk for them as commentators. However, I can pretty much guarantee Pokemon will need more commentators in the future as they try to expand or as people need to be replaced because they move on in life. The best thing you can do if you realized you had an interest in this right now is keep practicing over the course of the season. I suspect TPCI is going to want people who are already very polished and that’s hard to do (impossible?) in a couple weeks if you haven’t already been practicing. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a good commentator — spend time over the next year casting when you can. Nugget Bridge has done a horrible job of creating opportunities for people to cast because we haven’t really done any showmatches in XY, but hopefully we’ll be able to help with that. Look at how much better say, Duy has gotten since the first time we used him for NB stuff because of how much practice he got first with us and then with the events on the west coast. Evan and I are definitely willing to help coach people who are serious about this (even though we could still use some more coaching ourselves!). It’s not as easy as it looks, and there are a lot of elements to what you have to do in order to be effective I don’t think people totally understand without going through it some first. Stream when you can. Commentate showmatches when you can. Evan and I were doing this pretty frequently for about a year before we got picked up and frankly, I expected that it’d take at least another year before TPCI seriously considered us (I still think it was a pretty crazy leap of faith).
That goes for the younger guys and the people outside of NA too — I don’t know what Pokemon will need in the future, but getting ahead of the curve can only help you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LClHo-OxFZU
Fisdunction is the best commentator I’ve seen in years. Super ambitious, brilliantly atmospheric, jam packed with subtle details and Easter eggs, masterful storytelling, Schneider lens, lovable character, checkpoint technology, dog graphics. 0 outta 5.