So I have been playing for a while now and I watch a lot of LCS! I was wondering how I can get into being a shoutcaster for even ULOL? Anyone have any advice on how I can get started? I have a lot of commentating knowledge and game knowledge.
I recently joined the shoutcasting team for the NA LCS, so I can share a little bit about how I got started and got myself to this point.
The first thing to know is that amateur shoutcasting has no set path you have to walk to make it big. Everyone's experience will be different, so don't try to 100% replicate someone else's path to success. Focus instead on what works for you.
For me, I started in summer of 2015 doing solo casts of my friends playing SoloQ. I listened back to them afterwards, noting what I liked and what I didn't. Listening to your own casting is important throughout the entire process. It's like proofreading a paper. It helps you identify weaknesses in your casting and take specific steps to fix them.
After a couple months of those solo casts, I started looking for opportunities to get my casting in front of other people. At first, I was looking through the forums trying to find anything remotely resembling a tournament that needed casting. The first thing I casted for an audience was a small tourney from these boards. It had 8 viewers. Forum tourneys are a really random and unreliable way to get casting experience though. You never know when they're going to be happening ahead of time, and a lot of the time when they do happen the organizers don't have a lot of experience and things can get off track.
Out of a desire to find something more organized and reliable, I joined an amateur LCS-style organization called Houseparty5v5 (reddit.com/r/houseparty5v5) where I casted for the better part of a year. Working with them allowed me to cast multiple times a week, every week, while also building up a small fan base in the community. We're still not talking crazy viewers here. Usually somewhere between 50-100 is what can be expected for amateur communities like this. I'd recommend joining something like this if you want to get started casting. Skip the forum tourneys step. Houseparty5v5 collapsed in August 2016 and is just now rebuilding. They seem to be doing all right for themselves, but Compete League (reddit.com/r/competeleague) is another option for a reliable amateur scene. The thing that first got me noticed in the greater League of Legends community was actually a highlight clip from a crazy baron fight in a Houseparty5v5 game.
In summer of 2016, I also started doing English casts of non-English pro and semi-pro events (Demacia Cup in China, LMS Playoffs/Qualifiers, Korean bootcamp streams, EUCS Qualifiers). These events got the most viewers of anything I did, ranging from a few hundred on average to about 2k at the highest (LMS Grand Final). I had a lot of success with these because the community WANTS to see these games in English, there just isn't an official English cast. If you're good, they'll be happy to watch you because they care about the teams and players (compare this to amateur leagues where the players/teams are all unknowns).
The most important thing overall is to always be looking for opportunities to stand out and be noticed. Back to the first thing I said, no one is going to tell you "just do these things and you'll be a caster." You have to create ways to get yourself noticed and put your work out there. Best of luck!
Shoutcasting takes a pretty good amount of practice and experience. Upon reading your post, it actually got me thinking about the roots of the likes of Quickshot, Froskurinn, Drakos, Flowers, Krepo; the list goes on. QS and Flowers specifically started out with solo casting games as a form of content creation. From there it just came to having the proper networking through either their voice and pace (Play-by-play casting) or their in depth analysis - why make this move and what comes of it (colour casting).
Long story short, if I had advice to give, I'd say to hone your voice to one of the styles of casting, and get your name out there through any capable means, even if it's through amateur leagues.
Make content.
