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."
I'll believe it when it actually happens. (Score:2)
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According to the representative from CBSi at the e-sport conference at Valencia 2011 e-sport already generated more viewer-minutes each month than superbowl does its entire season. The problem is that it is distributed on so many streamed channels that it is hard to capitalize on.
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than superbowl does its entire season
The Super Bowl lasts an entire season now?
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Apparently the finals were shown live on ESPN2 as well
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The real issue with Video Game sports is the fact for the time for the people to get the 10,000 hours of practice to be a real master at it will take at least a couple of years. At the point where people are ready for it to be a sport, the game is already kinda old, and the new kids who are coming in are training on new games.
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That's part of the challenge and appeal.
Some of the old games like Starcraft are still honored at sporting platforms, because those are the games where you can see the "old masters" play their refined strategies against each other, as is expected in a game of chess. In newer games, the strategy isn't a refined battle plan, but a more volatile response to counter the opponent's particular style, more akin to a boxing match.
How long will PCs remain compatible? (Score:2)
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But how long will PCs continue to be able to run the Starcraft binaries usably?
Pretty much forever. We can always create some kind of setups which are able to run the game successfully. Then we have Starcraft 2 of course...
And how long will Actiblizzard continue to authorize streams of Starcraft play rather than just DMCAing them for infringement of the copyright in Starcraft?
I have no idea why they would do it. The Starcraft tournaments bring enormous value to their ecosystem.
Let's Play takedowns (Score:2)
Actiblizzard [has the option of] DMCAing them for infringement of the copyright in Starcraft
I have no idea why they would do it.
For the same reason as the Let's Play takedowns. Sega DMCA'd videos containing footage [techdirt.com] of the Shining Force games (but later issued a non-apology [techdirt.com]). Some publishers, such as Nintendo, might instead choose to put a Content ID* claim on videos containing "images or audio of a certain length" (such as a game's title screen or cut scenes), diverting ad revenue away from partners.*
* YouTube terminology used. Feel free to substitute.
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http://www.esportsearnings.com... [esportsearnings.com]
It's not nearly as big an issue as you'd assume
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DOTA in one form or another has been around since Warcraft III. League of Legends is close enough to DOTA that most pro's can swap between the two if they ever chose to. Strarcraft and its predecessors have been around since Starcraft 1, and most knowledge carries over. These people are used to rule changes, as generally every new game patch has the potential to introduce radically different play styles to succeed. Counterstrike and games like it haven't evolved significantly in style since the beginning of
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Or back into the 90s with Starcraft if you consider that DOTA was a port (albeit one with a significant increase in complexity) of Aeon of Strife.
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There's enough overlap from one game to another that it doesn't take a fresh 10,000 hours to master the next game that comes along. A surprising amount of the pro level skill is in fact mechanics (as in physically moving quickly and accurately enough to play the game at high level). There are several SC2 professionals that started their careers playing twitch FPS games for example. Within a genre... well there's not that much difference between SC2 and Command and Conquer, let alone Brood War and SC2.
Ano
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The real issue with Video Game sports is the fact for the time for the people to get the 10,000 hours of practice to be a real master at it will take at least a couple of years. At the point where people are ready for it to be a sport, the game is already kinda old, and the new kids who are coming in are training on new games.
Historically, this is accurate. However, the effective life of a given game seems to be increasing. It used to be that as technology advanced, it enabled entirely new systems of interaction. Lately, the advancements of technology seem to result in better looking games, and enabling games on more platforms, but the mechanics of the games themselves are largely remaining the same.
The moba scene is a good example of this. LoL and Dota2 are really more sets of rules than they are technology. It's about how lo
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http://i.imgur.com/oE3jel6.png
Now you've seen it.
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I wonder what Tony Hawk would think of the viability of eSports?
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We're a hell of a lot of closer now, than we were. There are people playing for literally millions now. A far cry from the days of fatal1ty.
Consume! (Score:2, Troll)
...and many large companies are starting to view them in the same light as traditional sports...
Just another consumer product, of course "large companies" are looking the fleece money off of Americans with disposable income...
We are a "consumer society", as other societies seek to better their lot through education and economic advancement, we Americans consume.
I am one (Score:2)
I got really into watching DOTA 2. I first started watching games to learn how to play it better. The game has a pretty big learning curve, so being able to watch how people played helped me learn the basics. Once that was over, I found that there are actually a lot of interesting casters who do daily live plays which are *shocked* actually entertaining in themselves. I don't necessarily spend every moment glued to the screen like I would during major tourney's, but a nice semi-background activity to spend
Well, to be fair... (Score:2)
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At least in more...muscular...pursuits team biology has done a sufficiently good job that there are plenty of actually performance enhancing drugs out there. For the mind we have some mediocre alertness aids and anti fatigue stuff that allow you to study a bit longer; but nothing nearly as dramatic as what you can do t
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But the very article you posted says that there's testing because they're hoping to get classified as a sport, which no international sports league currently does. Chess promoters want to get into a sports competition such as the Olympics or Pan-Am games, and figure drug testing is a great first step.
Chess is not a sport, the idea is ludicrous.
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I liken it to motor sports. Its one level of abstraction from direct physical involvement like most of the major sports. Driver masters the skill of driving which is used to control a car for racing instead of racing themselves. Players control an avatar for competing instead of themselves directly. I find eSports intrigueing but driving to be insanely boring so your mileage may vary.
I'd argue that level of gaming definitely requires a type of physical skill, though it'd be closer to badminton or chess
Chess isn't subject to copyright takedowns (Score:2)
If people classify chess as a sport, so should these things, no?
No. The difference is that Chess is more than 95 years old. Anyone can sell Chess equipment and stream Chess matches without permission from FIDE or any other governing body. With games like StarCraft, on the other hand, all leagues operate at the pleasure of Actiblizzard. If Actiblizzard doesn't like a league, then under current law, it can shut down the league's streams with a copyright claim.
eSports are too deterministic to be popular. (Score:1)
4 hours of "This team is totally gonna sports all over this team, because of the sportsing. These 12 players will totally sports all over the sports because of sports."
followed by a 1 hour game that takes 4 hours
followed by a 4 hours of "That team totally sportsed all over the other team because of sportsing, but these 3 players were particularly sportsy because of sportsing.
eSports consists of deterministic matches, usually between 2 players. There is just not enough bullshit
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Sports fandom feeds off of the non-deterministic nature of the games that are played, sure there are winners and losers, but there is very little room in eSports to blame Referees, because in the game world it would be called "Exploits" and would be considered verifiable cheating.
Pro gamers use exploits all the time, and these are usually allowed it they don't break the game too much and use only standard manipulations. Some of these exploits became a core mechanic in these games. A classic example is the strafe-jump in Quake, a bug which allowed the player to exceed the maximum running speed by making a series of diagonal jumps. This bug was voluntarily reproduced in the next Quake games because it made gameplay more interesting.
And sure, you have no referees but bugs and hardware
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.
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As far as I'm concerned the only thing as stupid as regular sports, are eSports. I will never understand either one, but eSports are perhaps more irritating to me personally since I like video games just fine, but the bastardization that occurred in turning them in to an eSport seems always to have entirely removed every ounce of fun from the game, in favor of the min/max activities required to compete.
DOOM was fun, then I beat it, played it a few more times just for giggles, then never played it again. It
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In other words dicking around is okay, so long as one doesn't drop the pretentious nonchalant act. Otherwise the girls at school will see how much fun you have and the jocks will tease you for it. Anything but that.
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By playing against other people, they're playing another game that uses DOOM graphics. Yes I've played it over the network, but it wasn't a lot of fun. It's like baseball, it's fun to swing at the ball, it's mildly amusing to catch balls launched into the stratosphere or flying at you at high speeds, or even to see how fast you can throw the ball straight.
Playing a game of baseball is incredibly boring, you get to bat maybe three times, more often than not told to not try to swing for the fence but to just
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You just don't understand the competition. The competition in gaming is not at all the same as the regular 'public' play. Competitive gaming is about developing and resonating on new advantages that other teams do not have and then applying them in carefully orchestrated strategies. You're right that it's not fun for you because your expectation of the game is similar to how the game was advertised. The people having fun with competitive gaming are reaping the rewards of hard work and the feeling of s
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
Re:I disagree. (Score:4)
Your failure isn't stopping it from becoming the norm.
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At the high level of competition, you'd be surprised at the skills being developed. We don't use IM, we use radio comms similar to when I was in the military. PTT. We also have programs that model the maps (3rd party software) and allow us to draw and place icons and such so as to communicate out a strategy for everyone to work out and understand. It's like a chalkboard, but far better.
At the end of the day, you guys naysaying eSports simply lack the experience to know what you're talking about. So fa
Coca Cola advertise? (Score:1)
Why? Newborns have brand-awareness. What a waste of cash.
Not Surprising (Score:3)
Video games are better to spectate than sports. Broadcasters have known this for decades, doing what they could to compensate. Gimmicks won't stall change forever though, sooner than later they'll have to face this fact. The real interesting stuff will be the cultural shift when video games start to challenge the popularity of athletic sports.
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Video games are better to spectate than sports.
That's not true as a generalized statement. The games that are being played now by professionals in front of an audience, like LoL, DOTA2, SC2 and CS:GO are actually designed around being good for spectators. There's a whole lot more in the gaming sector that doesn't work for spectators.
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. The games that are being played now by professionals in front of an audience, like LoL, DOTA2, SC2 and CS:GO are actually designed around being good for spectators.
I don't know what any of these games are
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On the flip side, do you know the rules to rugby? Lacross? Cricket?
If I were to say the fencer on the left had a beautiful Pris-de-fare, but the fencer on the right's remise landed first, do you know who got the touch?
Because there are things out there which people enjoy, which you might not be aware of.
Hey, if you like to know which hollywood celebrity is sleeping with who, or what caliber the Austrian special forces use, that's fine.
And some people like reaver drops and forge-first-expansions.
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It's a consequence of being computer generated, the games can damn well have any visual and audio effects the developers please. Sports on the other hand are affected by the unfortunate circumstance of awkward silence and distant perspective. A game's shit design has nothing to do with it.
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Jesus christ, League of Legends AND Extra Credit? In some countries that could be considered a challenge to armed combat.
Yes, the design is irrelevant. The point was that games are inherently advantageous. I don't give a shit what godawful designers are doing to ruin their game's presentations.
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You're just repeating what I said.
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Dota team fans exhibit a lot of national pride. The fact that Dota is so popular in China makes a lot of big tournaments a clash of egos between Chinese and western fanbases.
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Video games are better to spectate than sports. Broadcasters have known this for decades, doing what they could to compensate. Gimmicks won't stall change forever though, sooner than later they'll have to face this fact. The real interesting stuff will be the cultural shift when video games start to challenge the popularity of athletic sports.
Decades? That would imply at least two decades. So you are suggesting that in 1994 broadcasters knew that video games are better to spectate that sports? I think that might be overstating things a little...
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It's not. Sports broadcasts have been laden with effects and embellishments for ages. Even if they hadn't connected these traits with video games the inherent benefits have nevertheless been understood.
A game's publisher is allowed to dictate (Score:2)
The real interesting stuff will be the cultural shift when video games start to challenge the popularity of athletic sports.
I expect that to happen around the 2080s when the copyrights in popular multiplayer video games start expiring, provided that national legislatures don't extend the term of copyright again. Until then, a game's publisher is allowed to dictate who, when, where, and how broadcasts are allowed to happen.
eSports really ? when darts is a sport, then, sure (Score:1)
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sorry, old school here. But a sport involves the combo of physical exertion, and skill.
Exactly. Professional Sports athletes put in countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears to become the best at what they do. They need to practice and better themselves physically in order to become the best at what they do. They risk their bodies (from injuries) when playing sports. Sitting in a chair with a controller behind a TV/Computer screen is nothing compared to what "old school" sports athletes go through. 2 a day practices, 6am practices, etc. You just won't find that kind of sacrifice in esports -
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Starcraft 1 players on pro teams lived together and their average day was full of training between meals, gym session, and theorycrafting with their coach. Isn't polishing the matchups and builds for 12hrs a day not enough of a sacrifice?
Try practising so much that you are able to sustain 300 actions per minute with 99% accuracy for half an hour and then we'll talk.
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" But a sport involves the combo of physical exertion,"
Back in my day, lugging that goddamned 21" Trinitron CRT around with my almost as heavy loaded Antec P4 Server WAS the physical exertion aspect. Not easy for someone that's 6' and 145.
Off my lawn.
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you know, that's why it's called a eSport event. On another note, the word sport dosen't mean that it's only for physical competitions.
you stooge.
Why don't we just check a dictionary on that?
Sport (Noun)
An athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
Hmm.
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Money talks and no matter how much you huff and puff about useless semantics, the world will move on and accept e-sports into the cultural fabric like so many new forms of expression and entertainment before them.
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So mutual masturbation via video chat is an eFuck right?
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Yep. I'm going to fear some AC troll and a vauge, pointless threat of "mod points".
Probably about as much as belching during a belching contest.
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How is that relevant though? eSports is just a name, but the fact remains that people watch these things, will pay money to watch "live", and advertisers can monetize these eyeballs. That's why it's viewed like "traditional sports". Now you may think people are stupid and are paying money to watch a bunch of dudes clicking on a mouse with fingers on WASD, but hey, people watch a bunch of dudes trying to get an oblong ba
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Sorry. But they're not sports.
They're not.
All this is, is an attempt to fleece money out of a bunch of stooges who're too stupid to understand that watching a bunch of guys clicking away on a computer or console system is NOT a sport.
Sorry, but email is not the same as mail. It just isn't. People are too stupid to understand that pressing buttons on a keyboard is NOT the same as sending a letter through the post office.
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I prefer the more accurate term ePenis over eSport.
--
"Once money is involved, the art & activity is almost always corrupted. Politics, Sports, Movies, Games, etc."
Think female developers are already complaining (Score:2)
About how they get harassed from gamers
http://games.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Can you imagine any of these people dealing with what an Umpire a Tennis Linesman, or a god forbid a Soccer Ref has to go through ?
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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.
The size of the purse (Score:1)
The entire purse of The International 2014 was larger than the British Open - this is one step in eSports becoming relevant.
Whether or not it's a sport is missing the point (Score:1)
Arguments for or against this being a sport are all missing the point. It's an activity performed by an elite few that a large population of people want to spectate. It's a spectacle and entertainment. Whether it's a eSports, baseball, food eating competitions, the Olympics, a boxing match, poker, etc. the common denominator for them all is that enough people want to view it that that the activity becomes economically sustainable in some manner.
Super Smash Bros (Score:2)
I'm going to be competing in my first official Super Smash Bros Melee tournament (ie. paid entry, prizes) in a couple of days and have been soaking in many videos of professional tournament games over the past couple weeks. It's truly amazing to me to see the strategies and techniques that the pros employ. It takes a LOT of practice to be able to exploit a character's specific intricacies in order to optimize your offensive and defensive game. It practically gets down to the point of playing mind games w
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a game where most of the participants act like that one asshole
Every single starcraft match I've watched has had every participant sit there like a robot with a slightly furrowed brow until the match is over. "dramatic flare" reduces your APM and lets the zerglings rush you.