The recent news about the movement to include competitive video gaming into the Olympics has inspired me to write this piece to shed some light on what I think Electronic Sports (E-Sports) is and what it isn’t. I recommend to anyone that is reading this article to please first read http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/42321
A Brief History of E-Sports and Pro-Gaming
Most roots of this mainly online culture can be found in the deathmatch style games of Quake and its sequels. We could go even further back, to games like Doom and to arcade games that had a popular, high-score obsessive culture around them, like Pac-Man. As time went by, competitive gaming grew more popular. It was helped mainly by the handful of users getting better, cheaper, and faster access to the Internet, and by a few notable video games. Games like Counter Strike, Quake III, and StarCraft, were the three main games that helped propel the genre into further popularity.
It was during these times that characters like Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel emerged as “Champions” that managed to enjoy success in several video games, not just specialize in one.
Simply put, as time went by, the scene grew more and more popular, organized, and even glamorized.
Today, many in the E-Sports community feel that it is ready to blow into the real mainstream.
The Pro-Gamer Life Style Vs. The REAL Athlete Life Style
This is the main issue that I have with this culture. It’s not the fact that the majority of online gamers that I run into are immature kids. I don’t really care, since people can willingly ignore them or find a better crowd. Its the lifestyle.
I will use Fatal1ty as an example. He has explicitly stated several times in a variety of interviews that he rigorously trains before main events in order to preform at his maximum capacity. This usually means anywhere from eight to sixteen hours per day for as much as two months before a major event. Now this sounds swell and all, and you certainly can’t fault the man for having such degree of motivation and discipline to do this, but what about other aspects?
What impact does this have on his social and physical well being? He himself has said that his social life has suffered dramatically from this lifestyle. It does not take a genius to figure our what sort of physical shape one would be if he played video games religiously like that. The long term consequences of such a lifestyle can’t be good.
This is the major difference between someone who competes in computer games, and someone who competes in a grass field. A real athlete, someone who plays traditional games like soccer, football or tennis, also spends hours training per day. And it is true, that the same someone may also have to make sacrifices in his social life to pursue his dream. But at least the prospects are much better for him. I need not mention how lucratively (over)paid professional athletes are.
Also, they benefit from being in a very good physical shape at the same time. Well, for them it is a requirement actually.
And this leads to my next point:
Competition in Video Games Do NOT Have a Place in The Olympics!
To some of us, The Olympics is a very pure and beautiful establishment that, even though sometimes tainted by controversy, stands for something noble and great. That something differs from person to person, but it usually boils down to competing for the ultimate crown of a physical sport.
Sure people can argue that sports like Archery or Curling don’t have a place in The Olympics, but even those sports have more of a physical aspect than video games ever will. The advocates of E-Sports in Olympics always bring up some brain-damaged argument about how there is a physical aspect involved, always followed by a variant of the word “technically”.
“Well u move ur arm to aim amirite?”
Or they always try to twist the spirit of The Olympics so it fits the E-Sports world. They say things like “It’s not about physical prowess, its about competition”. But we all know deep down that the Olympics IS about physical prowess. Yes, it is also about mental discipline and self control, but it has always been mainly about physical prowess: strength, dexterity, and stamina. Non of which are even remotely required in E-Sports.
Don’t Get Me Wrong...
E-Sports can have its own Olympics. They should focus on improving their already established institutes like The CPL, ESWC, or WCG.
But it should never be inserted into a competition that is mainly “physical” and has a long history of being so.