The two ways to look at Naniwa vs. Nestea
By now everybody has something to say about the Naniwas vs Nestea game. A game that had no bearing on the tournament, and which was ended by possible the worst play that Naniwa could do. As boring as the game might be from a gameplay perspective, it is very interesting to see its backlash. There are a lot of emotions flying through the air (or the internet, really). But if you look at it rationally, there are really two things that could come out of this:
1) Naniwa did something that was silly/fun/stupid/disrespectful/awesome/awful/unprofessional, but he did not break any rules. This was a valid game of Starcraft 2. There was no cheating or hacking involved. He did not (directly) insult or injure anyone. It's part of the game.
As there was nothing wrong with the game in theory, you can argue this should be allowed, sure it's not nice for the viewers, but horrible matches have been played before. If you subscribe to the fact that sports should make people emotional, than it is hard to find a game that has created more emotion than this one. Sure, it may not be positive emotions for everyone. It will be hard to find people who do not have an opinion on this game, and the fact that it is being talked about so much is surely a good thing for publicity.
If you subscribe to this view (disclaimer: I do) then you can hold any view of the match that was played, good or bad, but just accept it has its place in Starcraft history and move on. It will be something we look back on, and whenever a particularly unimportant match is being played in a tournament (which will undoubtedly happen again) casters will ask "Is one of them going to do a Naniwa?" Esports is a culture, and culture is defined by things like this.
2) Naniwa did something that should not be allowed. We should step up now and claim this is not allowed, perhaps try to codify it into rules. From this point forward, doing a silly build because you do not want to play should be punished.
Again, this is a completely valid point of view, but it needs to be articulated well. Naniwa's play has raised the question "Do we allow play like this?" And we can answer that question with "No". But then we have to do so with some force. Tournament organizers need to crack down on unsportsmanlike behaviour in a way that makes it as clear as possible what is and is not considered acceptable.
The danger here is though, that people are going to call out plays that they find annoying, and use that to punish players. The issue is that for a player, the game is a perfect way to make a statement. Idra has 6-pooled in games he did not really want to play seriously. While maybe not as extreme as Naniwa, it was more a statement than a serious game anyway. Martina Hingis made a underhand serves. People are people, they make statements.
So the challenge for those that want to say no to this kind of play, is for them to make it stand. It is not good enough to just say "unacceptable play should be punished" as it leaves players and fans in the dark. What is unacceptable play and how should it be punished? That needs to be clear.
No matter what view you hold, I believe that Naniwa has done something important for Starcraft 2 and esports. He has given us something to debate. And if we do so in a mature manner, where we stand for the consequences of whatever decision we take, we will come out stronger. If anything, in due time, he should be recognised for that.
