Home » Casters » “Esports casting has been a great thing for my mental health” – Scottish esports degree student Leccyspec wants to host caster-exclusive LAN event ‘Caster Clash’
“Esports casting has been a great thing for my mental health” – Scottish esports degree student Leccyspec wants to host caster-exclusive LAN event ‘Caster Clash’
Up-and-coming esports caster Alec ‘Leccyspec’ Craigie wants to create a LAN event for commentators to network and gain experience.
Leccyspec is planning the event, dubbed ‘Caster Clash’, alongside English Rocket League caster Ryan ‘RhinoCasts’ Sheff.
The 19-year-old is a student of Scotland’s first-ever esports degree, which takes place at Dundee and Angus College and is run by the University of West London.
If you missed the @nse_gg Rocket League grand finals you missed a BELTER series.
Both @EsportsRoe and @lincolnesports put up an incredible fight but Roehampton ended the series victorious with a clean sweep!
Leccyspec is only two years into the course, but is optimistic: “Essentially, what you get are transferable skills. You get skills that you’re able to use in all aspects of life, we have modules in everything.
“How I like to describe it, it’s more like a business course with gaming woven into it. More so, with the degree itself, it gives you a taste of everything. It’ll introduce you to all the pathways that esports has.”
However, Leccyspec tells Esports News UK that there have been challenges with the course being so new:
“With this degree so far, it’s had its highs and its lows. Obviously, being the first set of students to come in and do this, we were expecting to be the guinea pigs, and we’ve definitely felt that.
“There has been a couple of opportunities. We’ve run events and it has been a really great time, we’ve learnt all these skills.
“But there’s also been false promises, and it’s not directly the fault of the college and university. It’s more that the esports scene at the minute is not at a place where it’s ready to offer what is promised of these degrees.”
“A lot of it is a journey you have to take on your own, there’s not a lot of guidelines in the industry. Especially when you’re getting into it.”
Alec ‘Leccyspec’ Craigie, esports student and caster
Adding to this, Leccyspec claims students were supposed to have work placements but many fell through:
“For example, for this report we just had to write, it originally was supposed to involve a placement. You’d write your whole report and write a section about your placement, what you learnt, how it backs up your topic etc.
“However, a lot of us found we didn’t get a placement at all. It then turned into mentorship, where we’d just have a chat with someone and put that into our document but even then, not a lot of us got mentors either.
“Especially in my case, I was given a contact by the college who I emailed back and forth and just didn’t hear anything from after weeks of follow-up.”
Leccyspec still believes the course has benefited him, but stresses breaking into the esports industry is down to individual effort:
“A lot of it is a journey you have to take on your own, there’s not a lot of guidelines in the industry. Especially when you’re getting into it.
“But in a year and a half, I’ve had a couple of LAN events, I’ve had plenty of paid offers and opportunities. It’s something that once you get into it, you can eventually get really good opportunities. It’s all about networking, you have to find the right people.”
The 19-year-old has cast both Scottish university tournaments and a Rainbow Six Siege Community LAN event.
R6 Community LAN was graced with amazing photography by @JonathonYau ❤️
Leccyspec described casting live as “very difficult,” but says it is an experience that has really helped him personally:
“It’s definitely really scary, it’s overwhelming but once you get into the swing of things you start to love it.
“Esports casting, is my little outlet where I can be myself in front of people. It’s been a great thing for my mental health, my confidence has skyrocketed because of it. I’ve been able to communicate much easier, because of casting essentially.
Leccyspec describes LANs as the “pinnacle” of esports casting but says opportunities are few and far between with many still waiting for their first live cast.
To help with this, Leccyspec is planning to set up an event where esports casters can help uplift each other.
The event will invite aspiring esports casters to an in-person event where they can compete on stage and commentate in a supportive environment.
“It’s called Caster Clash, we hope to be an annual event and help the grassroots caster scene,” Leccyspec explained.
“It will essentially consist of a bunch of casters who are in teams and play against each other while others cast the games. It goes around the team until everyone has cast.”
“It’s something that’s never been done before so why not try it?
“A lot of these people don’t have experience and if I’m able to help give that to other people, and help them feel the joy that I’ve felt having the experience on a LAN, it’s what I’m here for and what I want to do.”
“Esports casting, is my little outlet where I can be myself in front of people. It’s been a great thing for my mental health, my confidence has skyrocketed because of it.”
Alec ‘Leccyspec’ Craigie, esports student and caster
“I would love to make it full-time as a caster, I’d love to be able to be one of those Tier 1 going all over the world. But it is such a hard position to get into,” Leccyspec tell us.
“There’s only very limited number of people lucky enough to get that opportunity. I’d love for that to be where I go, and I’m still going to aim for that, but I will have that back-up plan of just settling down, part-time job maybe.
“And then if the esports casting thing doesn’t work out I can still then use the transferable skills from my course to go somewhere else in esports that is much easier to get into.”
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
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