The Emerald Isle is not a country often associated with esports, but as we’ve seen with Team Ireland’s stint in the Overwatch World Cup, things could be changing. As Irish players come up through the ranks in games like Overwatch and Call of Duty, a part of the industry that’s less often in the spotlight is broadcast and production. As an English-speaking country located on the periphery of Europe, Ireland is an ideal breeding ground for talented casters. For those unfamiliar, casting is the act of talking over gameplay for the benefit of the audience, much like commentary in traditional sports. Ireland has a multitude of rising casting talent, like Oisín “Penguin” Molloy, Tadhg “CelticTiger” Brennan and David Whyms but the individual we’ll be focusing on today is Rob “Dagda” Price.
Rob recently became a colour caster for the English broadcast of the League of Legends Pro League (LPL), China’s regional league. To take this job, Rob has had to uproot his life in Ireland and relocate to the smoky Chinese city of Shanghai. Unfortunately, the LPL broadcast has been suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak, and this has forced Rob back home for the time being. In this interview, we dive into Rob’s beginnings in esports and how his career has progressed up until now.
Up until recently, Ireland was an esports minnow which is why it’s surprising that Rob has been pursuing his casting career for a few years now. When asked about his beginnings in gaming, Rob talked about growing up playing games like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot and joked that people today wouldn’t remember the Sega Mega Drive. For a lot of gamers, esports is a natural progression from casual gaming and this was no different for Rob:
“I accidentally got involved as a viewer in esports. My friend convinced me to get StarCraft II and I was damned if I was going to be the one that held us back when we played 3v3s. This led to me watching Day9, an ex-Starcraft pro, who to this day is still one of my favourite online personalities. He did regular breakdowns of professional players’ games for StarCraft. This was the first time I realised that esports really existed outside of amateur tournaments”.
During his college years, Rob became the support for Trinity College’s League of Legends team but ended up stepping down to focus on his studies during his final year. Price was then thrust into the world of casting:
“Soon after this, I got a message from David Whyms asking me to fill in for a cast as one of the regulars was sick. Every part of my body wanted me to say no but I had only just finished reading Richard Branson’s book “Screw It, Let’s Do It” and thought I can’t say no to the first opportunity that presented itself. After the cast, they somehow didn’t think I was terrible and asked me if I wanted to get involved in more casting”.
Rob was just “going with the flow” as he described it and didn’t initially intend to make casting his career but opportunities kept arising and he kept taking them, honing his craft all the while. In 2018, after working on smaller leagues like the “UK & Irish Premiership” and the Nordic tournament “Ragnarok”, Rob landed a job as an analyst for the European Masters. The Masters is a Europe-wide League of Legends event that features the best teams from every European regional league. Price was fortunate to land this gig, as he got the job last minute after well-known personality Dan “Foxdrop” Wyatt wasn’t able to attend the opening stages of the event, prompting the crew to look for a replacement. Rob talked about the level of pressure that comes with working on such a widely-viewed event:
“I think the biggest difference is the pressure that comes with it. You have a lot more eyes that are watching you, some of them even people you admire in the industry that you don’t want to disappoint. There are also people who are very critical of you. Not only because you are potentially taking a job they want, but also because they expect casters to represent the level of play, which was very different from a G-Series final in the basement of a Dublin hotel. It made such a difference to have people like Aaron “Medic” Chamberlain and Devin “Piratechnics” Younge there to help ease the transition. They were happy to share their experience, give me some pointers and, most importantly, get my nerves in check. I definitely owe them big time!”.
Fast-forward to 2020 and Rob is now casting the LPL, the biggest league in the world and home of the current world champions, FunPlus Phoenix (FPX). There were struggles along the way, but landing this job validated many of Rob’s life decisions.
“Words could not describe how happy I was. I left my job in finance in January 2019 to pursue a full-time career as an esports caster, but it had been far from sunshine and rainbows up until that point. Not only was the work sparse but it would come with very little notice. I would regularly get messages only a day or two out from an event from a tournament organiser asking if I could be in another country. If you missed an event, oftentimes you wouldn’t hear back from the organiser again so that was effectively a pay cut. There were a lot of missed birthdays, nights out and strained relationships as a result. The LPL solved many of these issues, as it is a guaranteed project to work on with set hours which means I can now coordinate my life much better. Most importantly though, it has given me the opportunity to show my passion for League of Legends and the LPL to a global audience. I have been a Royal Never Give Up (RNG) fan since Season 3 (2013) when I saw UZI playing Vayne at the World Championships. Now I get to cast my favourite team in the region with some of the most storied organisations in League of Legends. Not to mention the fact that the region has just become back-to-back World Champions. It baffles me that this is now my job! It’s so fulfilling to create awesome side content that I can deliver to the fans and show them how amazing the LPL really is. It’s a dream come true. A big bonus for me as well is getting to live and experience Shanghai. Having lived there now for just over a month, I can honestly say I love the city.”.
Shanghai is a far cry from the streets of Dublin, but according to Rob, it’s actually quite a Westernised city with brands like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut littering the streets. Most importantly for the Irishman, Kerrygold butter and Avonmore milk are available for purchase in shops. Despite his poor Mandarin, Rob says the locals have been very welcoming and friendly. Not only has the coronavirus forced Rob back home, for the time being, it has also suspended the LPL indefinitely which has resulted in the teams only playing two games each so far. Despite this, Rob was able to give his opinion on some of the teams to look out for:
“There are so many teams that look promising. Vici Gaming has just picked up Kkoma from SK Telecom so they will need some time before he has moulded the team to their true strength. TOP Esports and Billibilli Gaming are also looking like contenders that could go all the way, stacking up well against the usual household names of RNG, Invictus Gaming and FPX. Secretly though I’m hoping that we see the newest team, Estar, take it all. They have shown they came to fight taking the series victory over FPX in week 1. And let’s be real. Everyone loves a good underdog story!”.
When asked about which lesser-known players we should look out for, Price explained that China churns out amazing talent every year and as a result, there are so many players to watch. Specifically, he touted Hwang “Kingen” Seong-hoon, Zhang “Zoom” Xing-Ran, Ding “Puff” Wang, Su “Southwind” Zhi-Lin and Yuan “Cryin” Cheng-Wei as talents to watch, as well as drawing attention to the already highly-regarded mid-laner Zhuo “Knight” Ding as potentially the next big force in international League of Legends.
To finish, we asked Rob if he had any advice for young Irish people looking to get involved in esports. He explained that it’s very important to just get involved, and start doing whatever you want your role to be. If you want to be an esports journalist, then start writing and if you want to be a caster, start recording yourself casting games and focus on improvement. He stressed that it’s important to not get discouraged:
“And don’t get me wrong, you are going to suck. We all did. But only with practice and being open to genuine criticism can you improve. I got advice from Derry “Dezachu” Holt that stuck with me through my career. He said never be afraid to reach out to people for help. Everyone in esports got to the place they are thanks to the help they received from someone else. Once you take those first few steps and help yourself people will happily help guide you and help you improve in whatever speciality you might want to follow.“
(This article originally appeared in the UCC Express)
Jack Coleman 
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