Stuart "TosspoT" Saw is one of the world's leading eSports shoutcasters. A director of QuadV and an integral part of the shoutcasting team at the CGS World Finals, live on television. He also is the owner of Crossfire, the largest Enemy Territory scene site, and organiser of the Crossfire Challenge LAN's.

He has written many columns and article on eSports as a whole and is a keen contributor towards it's future success. On a whim I decided to sit down with him and find out his thoughts on an ever growing scene.

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Hello Stuart! First let's focus on your latest project, eSports Weekly, what’s the idea behind that?

eSports Weekly is a project that I've wanted to do for a long time, it was discussed back in iTG and again in QuadV. Fortunately we (QuadV) were able to partner with both Xleague and Wipido to realise our ambition and deliver a quality product, which is a sports center style way of delivering eSports news. Each week there are results, news and original features. There’s a lot going on and it all needs to be crammed into 12 minutes for now as it airs regularly on Xleague (so it fits a regular TV slot).

So is this show targeted at a mainstream audience, or geared strictly towards the hardcore eSport fans?

This is strictly hardcore, there’s a great deal of 'assumed knowledge' that the audience know the players, know the games and have an interest in it. A lot of TV projects spend a great deal of time in educating their audience to grow it, but I'm not about to do that in this project and as such to anyone outside of the eSports circle this probably looks quite alien and unappealing.

I'm guessing the partnership with Wipido will see it broadcast on both TV and Web, do you plan to release both simultaneously?

Yeah they pretty much are on at the same time, we shoot every Wednesday and release both on Thursdays at the moment although episode 1 was delayed until Friday. It’s a joint venture between all 3 parties to try and get this project off the ground so generally we just want to push it out there and get as many people watching as soon as possible.

Do you think the show would benefit from a co-host, is there any plan to do this?

It’s certainly been discussed, many have said the show could do with a pretty face to go next to my ugly mug and I agree. However, I can’t see it happening for the pilot series as there’s only a limited budget for it, the full show however? Sure I think I’ll get Kirsty Gallagher.

So moving away from eSports Weekly, what else are you working on at the moment?

The Crossfire Challenge LAN Series is set to expand and Cadred readers will be glad to know that we're adding CS:Source

Well I've just finished University and so now I'm at this stage where I'm hoping I can make a living from gaming in some way shape or form. The Crossfire Challenge LAN Series is set to expand and Cadred readers will be glad to know that we're adding CS:Source to the game list as well as others, the announcement for that is due any day now but if Source players wanted to keep the 5th-7th of September free there'd certainly be something for them look out for.

The LANs will be rebranded from Crossfire to a new name so be sure to look out for that. I've also a lot I still want to achieve with Crossfire itself, and will be working towards that. Crossfire is still very much the heartbeat for a lot of what I do and improving it will never be too far away from my thoughts.

QuadV is of course very busy as well, we're going to have a busy summer with Paul off to CGS and the rest of the crew busy at the LAN's we'll be at during the summer. Whilst we're waiting on a few signatures before we announce things, CoD4 fans will see a lot of us this summer. QuadV's new site is due shortly as well.

So there’s a lot going on right now.

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Saving eSports from the flames.

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You made way for DjWheat in the Championship Gaming Series shout casting team, do you feel any bitterness?

Bitterness towards Marcus, the man who 'fathered' me through my shout casting years? Not an ounce, I owe a great deal to Marcus and am still great friends with him and willing accept that without his influence I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be interviewing me! The decision by CGS was pretty logical, Marcus became available and when talent like that is on your doorstep you'll always try to snap it up. I've done the CGS pilot shows (CGI) and the World Finals last year and they were a fantastic experience, however as I stated above I’ve a great deal on my plate right now so I can quite happily move on.

Staying on the CGS topic for a second, is it true they made Paul “ReDeYe” Chaloner stand on a box to match up height wise with you and Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel? (Sorry Paul!)

HAHA!! YES! In fact not just one box, 2 stacked on top of each other. The other week Paul and I did Xleague together and he only needed 1 box, so he was quite chuffed about that.

You've been heavily involved in shout casting Call of Duty 4 recently, where do you see it going as a competitive game?

Good question, CoD4 is in excellent shape because CoD4 doesn’t live off handouts from American or German organisations like other pro FPS Games, for this reason the competitive scene can remain strong for a long time.

Look at this summer’s LAN events, I count 62 thousand euro up for grabs from TeX, AEF, Multiplay and the next Crossfire event, 4 independent companies who have grown with the game and will be here again and again because their business models aren’t too heavily dependent on anyone but themselves.

ESL is also going to ramp up its involvement in CoD4 too, so things are looking very good for the games future.

While Call of Duty 4 is doing brilliantly, Counter-Strike: Source seems to be just holding its head above water, what kind of state do you think the game is in now?

there are two Counter-Strike Sources, one is the CGS and there it is in the best shape of all the pro FPS's, 100ish people making a monthly salary. Then there’s the rest, and it’s not looking so good.

Well, there are two Counter-Strike Sources, one is the CGS and there it is in the best shape of all the pro FPS's, 100ish people making a monthly salary. Then there’s the rest, and it’s not looking so good. The I-series and LAN79 support it well, but it needs more, MUCH more. The problem is that it lives in the shadow of 1.6 and not enough gaming bigwigs recognise its independence.

Then when independent organisations do pop up as they have in CoD4 they screw the CS:S community over, the superfly/xXhanubis deal, the summer slam tournament - CS:S has had some really rotten luck. I think things will improve but not quickly, and that will prove quite disheartening for people who love the game.

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Has Stuart ever looked like such a tosspot?

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You say that there are two CS:S scenes, do you think that CGS needs to do more to bridge the gap?

Idealistically, yes it does. Everyone in gaming has a responsibility to make the pie bigger, so that we can each have a bigger slice of it however in reality CGS can do whatever it wants for its own devices because it’s that much bigger than anything that has ever come before. However what could they do? They use a TV Rule set that most people don’t love, other than running cash tournaments in that rule set I don’t see them being able to do

Bluntly, do you think the CGS will work?

It got a second season in a fiercely competitive rating world, shows live and die by their ratings - look at when family guy got cut. CGS got a second season in the studio, so to some people it must be doing something right. However if the money runs out and ratings aren’t good, then it'll get dropped quickly one would assume. The fact that there’s another season suggests its working, but publically nobody has seen their ratings so it’s very hard to grasp whether it’s working or not.

As the lead eSports broadcaster in the world (online), do you think the cheesy Spiderman quote, "with great power comes great responsibility", applies to you (QuadV)?

Yes it does, 100%. It’s a responsibility that if you don’t recognise and adhere to, then you end up like one of the many powerful organisations who sold out to publishers and put crappy games in their 'esports' competition. You'll see that in the next Challenge LAN that although I've added CSS, it hasn’t come at the expense of ET the community I would call home, because if I dropped it, it would die pretty quickly as it’s what people are people are playing for.

However companies such as CGS have the biggest responsibility, because people like me who are trying to 'make it in this world' are dependent upon their success. If they do well, it's easier for others to approach companies about getting involved, if they fail then marketing managers will turn around and say, “if Rupert Murdoch can’t do it then neither can you”.

Ending on a stupid note, your handle, Tosspot, is somewhat provocative, where does it come from?

The day I bought RTCW my brother called me a tosspot, so I just put that as my name and its stuck since! Kind of sucks though at times as I have to change quite a lot for broadcasting, I should have gone for something original and cool like 'corin'....on second thoughts, I’ll stick with this!

Thanks for your time!