previously: https://cohost.org/-ZAN/post/440131-killer-technology-h
Over the course of a game, viewers ultimately want to know the answer to one simple question: who's winning? While developed games will have an explicit method of scorekeeping, the score typically fails to convey what's occurring on screen during a specific instance. As a result, game productions have attempted to convey who's winning to various degrees of complexity. The simplest of these is the often-maligned "Advantage" meter.
Advantage strives to distill all the game state variables into one number, typically represented as a percentage or a ratio. Sometimes the game itself provides explicit indicators of advantage: player one has 132 HP left; the defending team has 2 players remaining; Yoshihiko Ikawa has 9 life left. What muddies the water is when less tangible aspects start affecting the potential outcome of the game: a player just won the GRD tug-of-war; got a favorable turn after the flop; holds a sweeper despite having fewer creatures on board.
In these instances, which player has advantage may need to be done above the game layer during the production of the match overlay. While it's tempting to combine a soup of stats when setting Advantage, anchoring the number firmly to something organic rather than manufactured is more meaningful to the audience. The odds of winning a hold'em showdown may be a derived statistic, but it's one the players are always considering when making push-fold judgements. Do the teams in CS:GO ever use "firepower" to measure game performance? Doubtful.