An interview has appeared on the Dignitas website with David ‘Godz’ Parker talking about all things DotA.

The interview ranges from experiences at the International event to thoughts on the latest patch. The light-hearted interview also touches on his childhood ambitions to become a tennis professional in Singapore but how eSports  swallowed him up.

Most interestingly he talks about the SEA gaming scene and why it is different to Europe and North America, here are a few extracts from the interview;

Why do you think there is so much more coverage of the european and NA dota scenes as opposed to the asian or SEA ones?

GoDZ: As far as the streaming aspect of that, it’s very cultural. For a western audience, English is a universal language, and also it’s a big TV-culture as well, especially in the US (regardless of what time or tournament I’m streaming – I always seem to have mostly American viewers, except when its Filipino teams/tournaments). It’s not a very popular or common thing to watch streams in SEA.

In SEA there is a big LAN-culture, players all compete and just play leisurely at their local LAN with friends, and they don’t go there to watch streams. When at home they spend time with family, so there isn’t really space for watching streams.

As far as the other coverage and awareness of the Asian dota scene, I think it comes down to various failings of the community (including myself at times). I work as hard as I can to try promote teams people may not know if I feel they deserve it. Recently in the GEST DotA tournament a Cambodian team, SVR_eS, from a qualifier caused some major upsets. This tournament features 22 or so invited teams, and 2 qualifier teams who I normally assume will just get stomped (and they usually do).

I was upset with myself and also the community for failing this team and not giving them the recognition they deserved, so I really worked to learn more about them, interview them, and help them grow. Language barriers and the various small isolated scenes in SEA make it hard to really connect everyone like you see in the European/NA scene.

What are some of your plans for dota in the near future?

GoDZ: The main thing I’m working on at the moment is actually travelling! I’ll be heading to Thailand and Philippines in just 2 weeks for various DotA and Dota 2 related events – most significantly PGF on Oct 27-28 – all thanks to Gigabyte! In December, the SMM DotA Grand Finals is on which I hope to cast, since all DotA casters have mostly gone to Dota 2 except for me, and I’m the only caster who properly follows the SEA/China scene – so I’d be upset if I don’t get to cast this tournament.

My plans for the future involve getting more directly involved with the teams and community – I want to see Dota 2 be a huge e-sports within the Asian scene – China is already dominating the game, but I want to see more teams grow in SEA and even Europe/Americas, and a more established competitions system, and finally a site or community which helps really see the teams grow and make the entire Dota 2 “world” more connected as cheesy as that sounds. Maybe I’ll find that community soon!

To see the full interview at the Dignitas website, click here.