eSports Starting To Go Mainstream 116
An anonymous reader writes: eSports have never been more popular, and many large companies are starting to view them in the same light as traditional sports. The amount of money being thrown around is beginning to rival the money exchanged over sports teams. A recent Dota 2 tournament handed out over $10 million in prizes, and Google's $1 billion purchase of game-streaming site Twitch.tv has now been confirmed. But it doesn't end there — companies like Coca-cola, Intel, Nissan, and major movie studios are looking at the audiences being drawn by eSports and realizing the advertising potential. "Last fall, Riot Games sold out the Staples Center for its League of Legends Championship Series Finals. While 12,000 people watched live in the home of the Lakers and Kings, over 32 million tuned in to the livestream." George Woo, head of a global eSports tournament, said, "Attendance to Intel Extreme Masters events has grown 10X with us filling up sport stadiums, where we have visitors lining up to get a seat to watch the competition. Online it has grown 100X, where we now get more viewers watching livestreams for a single event than we'd have tune in for an entire season in the past."
It's about time!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
eSports have been my long-time favorite way to spectate gaming (or demonstrate skill to an audience). I've never been much of a fan of watching real-life sports -- some have been pretty interesting, especially if they don't have downtime (like soccer, rugby, etc) -- but at the end of the day, the fact that I don't participate in these sports has left me with less interest.
Competitive Gaming on the other hand, has been a staple in my life since Doom II. I will never forget how Quake 1 had great multiplayer mods with capture the flag, etc, and that you could go into a spectator mode. At that point, I was very excited to see how other players would react and strategize in situations I myself would encounter.
Fast forward over a decade and we've got competitive counter strike, battlefield 2, etc, rolling along and the shoutcasts started. These were always very niche, but they were far more frequent than the extremely rare CPL video streams and the poor attempts by big media companies to create an eSport event on television. Back then (about 10 years ago), those big media events usually had too many shots of the crowds and of the gamers themselves, and not enough attention to the gameplay. For me, the best shoutcasts were direct video streams from observer mode and first person mode, with announcers discussing the game as it unfolds.
Anyway... In the last several years, there have been Twitch streams and much larger scaled video game streams or recordings on youtube that are really starting to please my tastes. It's good to see that gaming, a very popular medium for competition and pleasure, is gaining mainstream attention. This is also a great sign that our generation is finally starting to matter.
I disagree. (Score:1, Interesting)
There is so much more with physical sports than with eSports, video games or whatever you want to call them.
With a physical sport not only are you building hand eye coordination in real life*, but you are developing physical abilities and social skills/social interaction. IM'ing with someone isn't the same.
*I've seen some of those videos of someone throwing a knife that bounces off a building, ricochets off a bird or something and then lands in some guy's eye. What physics are these games using?
I grew up on video games - no pretentious label of "eSports". What I missed out is "ball sense". Intuitive sense of how a ball moves and interacts with other objects.
What that means, after seeing someone hit a ball and then land in front of me, I don't know what it's going to do until I see it. Folks who grew up playing ball can anticipate where it will go.
Because I missed out on that - and it's something that has to be hard wired as a child - I am doomed to suckage as an adult ball player. Bottom of the 'C' league for me - and that's even paying mega bucks for coaches and playing every single night for years.
Looking back now, my years playing "eSports" were wasted. I should have been out there playing ball or something, making friends, learning how to deal with people.
There's a reason why the ex-ballplayers end up in upper management - and it's not all "jocks like hiring other jocks".
As an adult I have learned the wisdom of the Greeks who valued developing the mind, spirit AND the body.
Lame. (Score:3, Interesting)
Regular sports are already a pretty obnoxious part of our society. Fandom brings out an ugly semi-repressed tribal side of people. Most sports themselves are lame and boring to watch on TV,especially when the wanker of an announcer just can't shut up and has to drone on with endless repeats of some anecdote.
Sports, like electronic games, can be a lot of fun to play, mostly awful to watch.
Stay off my lawn too.