Pro Gamers To Be Tested For Doping 155
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Sports League is the biggest organization for running video game competitions. The league has now announced that they will begin testing professional video gamers for performance-enhancing drugs. The league is getting help in making policies from anti-doping agencies that help regulate athletes in traditional sports. They say, "[W]e will be administering the first PED skin tests at ESL One Cologne this August, with a view to performing these tests at every Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One and ESL ESEA Pro League event thereafter as soon as the official PED policy is established and tournament rules updated accordingly." This announcement comes after a high-profile Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player admitted last week that he and many other players used Adderall to gain an advantage in tournaments.
Re:They should have a parallel dope league (Score:5, Interesting)
And make people display what they take, so we'd finally know what crap actually works.
I see a huge possibility for advertising in the pharma sector.
What about "legitimate" use? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Even in "proper" sport, you can use banned substances as long as you have a real medical need to use them, and there is no alternative that isn't on the banned list, "Therapeutic Use Exemption", I believe it's called. So I imagine it will be the same deal here.
Re: (Score:1)
You sure about that? I've seen cyclists disqualified for taking flu medication (with prescription and all). Also, if we take into account that ADD is currently a the condition of the moment and it's GREATLY over-diagnosed (if you go to your medic with mild to moderate stress symptoms, chances are s/he'll diagnose you with ADD), I don't think that would be a good idea.
Re: What about "legitimate" use? (Score:3, Informative)
You normally need to get permission from the organization in charge of the competition, which includes a checkup by a physician of their choice. Just having a prescription is often not enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, now diagnose me of not having ADD with me wanting to have it.
Good luck.
Re: (Score:3)
Unless you belong to a group that is less than a percent of the population, catching someone pretending is pretty easy for a serious tester, since a serious test battery includes memory, reaction and impulse control tests for example, interviews with family, blood tests etc. Here in Sweden, EEG etc are slowly getting used for testing too.
Now, if you just go to an average US clinic, on the other hand, yeah, then it gets easier, since they earn more the more patients they prescribe to etc, but that's a comple
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not talking about pretending, the person really thinks he has ADD. It's easy. Read the DSM IV definition, look down the list of symptoms and tell me that you don't have ADD.
As long as you don't cross examine with a differential diagnosis for other mental conditions, it's very easy to convince yourself you have ADd.
Re: (Score:2)
Once again, that's a standard situation that students are taught as a matter of basic instruction. The impulse control, memory etc are things that no matter of hard conviction can affect. Also, as I mentioned, there's the interview with family etc, including childhood behaviour etc.
Also, broad spectrum screening is standard in serious testing.
Re: (Score:2)
And the family won't lie? We're talking money here, those "pro gamers" can earn some serious dinero,
And it's easier to fake poor memory than good memory. Along with poor impulse control. I can currently not think of anything ADD related that you can't fake sensibly.
Re: (Score:3)
And then the family must have constructed a very watertight background, all the way down to age 2. In reality, as opposed to your simple thoughts, those stories end up with all kinds of discrepancies. Point in case, one of the players talked about in this story was busted several years ago, precisely because of all the inconsistencies. He tried to fake a lot of symptoms etc on stream. Yet when he took his Adderall, he was displaying symptoms to the medicine utterly inconsistent with what someone with ADD or
Re: (Score:1)
he's right, when i take a little adderall it makes me sleepy, i can zone out and have symptoms like im sedated, i take what i feel is my dose i become focused and productive and organzied, if i take too much then i get like super add or how normal people behave with a little dose of adderall
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to apply for the exemption and get it approved before hand, you can't just go ahead and use the banned substance and then claim exemption afterwards; prescription or not, you'll get banned if you do that.
I take your point on ADD being overdiagnosed. I don't live in the USA, but I have heard that that is the case there, and maybe in other places as well.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, there are a whole lot of tests other than just the questionnaire, when performed by serious testers: Impulse control tests, memory tests, reaction tests etc etc.
Re: (Score:3)
"Again, those tests give the same results for ADD and stress. If you weren't diagnosed with ADD/ADHD when you were 6, as an adult is an "undiagnosable" condition."
And you are wrong on both counts, once again. Some types of stress have some symptoms that overlap with ADD(far less for ADHD). However, with the battery of tests I mentioned, as well as blood tests etc, you get completely different aggregate profiles. Also, various neurological disorders can appear or disappear with major metabolism changes assoc
Re:What about "legitimate" use? (Score:4, Funny)
Depends on your doctor. I went to see mine, and he diagnosed me with SUB.
Re: (Score:1)
You need to have that kind of medical evidence for need; and request in advance and gain approval from your sporting bodies testing organisation.
Such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Anti-Doping_Agency and their TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) process https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/science-medical/therapeutic-use-exemptions
Re: (Score:1)
YOUR post is laughable and contradicts reality. We are diagnosing ADD more and more every year, and it's already well established that we are over-diagnosing. If you graduated college... heck, if you made it into college without having serious (and I mean serious) problems and, all of a sudden, you are diagnosed with ADD, chances are (99.99%) you never had it in the first place. But it turns out that the demographic with the highest rate of adult ADD diagnostics are academics, computer scientists, physicist
Re: (Score:1)
Nice. But narcotics are not generally used for ADHD. The big two (Ritalin and Adderall) are stimulants. In fact, there aren't even any narcotics in the non-stimulant or other medications lists on WebMD:
http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/... [webmd.com]
Re: (Score:1)
I am not sure why but people seem to, in my observation, be prone to making this mistake. They seem to think that "narcotics" means all drugs. Really, narco would be sleep. Cocaine should not really be classed as a narcotic but some due because it induces physical numbness. My understanding is that the numbness was originally defined as a mental state. Opiates are narcotics. Amphetamines are not. The media is not helping. Some drugs fit in multiple categories and that probably does not help either as few ar
Re:What about "legitimate" use? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Even cold medicine can be performance enhancing and people have been banned for taking it in the weeks before a competition.
Re:What about "legitimate" use? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why bother in the first place? Seriously.
I think it's well past time to stop pretending that there's some special purity in these competitions, "athletic" or gaming or whatever, and acknowledge them as what they are: entertainment. And the competitors are entertainers. Their job is not so much to win the race or Starcraft match, or to put the ball through the hoop or into the end zone or whatever. Their job is to put butts in stadium seats and eyeballs on the TV.
We don't drug test Lady Gaga, and take away her Grammy when she tests positive for pot. Robin Williams gets to keep his Golden Globe awards for Mork & Mindy, despite being hopped up on cocaine half the time. And we don't drug test the Rolling Stones before they go on tour and suspend Keith Richards from the first 10 shows when he tests positive for... probably just about everything.
So really... What's do special about Lance Armstrong or Barry Bonds or some Adderall-popping gamer that makes their brand of entertainment any more "pure" than any other?
Re: (Score:3)
In a sports competition, the entertainment is devalued if the competition is rigged in any way. Competition-based entertainment is the idea that, with enough skill, any of the contenders can win the prize. Doping, cheating, or any other rigging of the competition destroys that sense of possibility, and thus, the core entertainment. It makes the win feel cheaper, and diminishes the audience experience, as there's an expectation of fair play.
For performers, their only job is to provide an entertaining show
Re: (Score:2)
I have been saying that I would watch a second 'Olympics' where it was known that the participants were taking performance enhancing drugs. It would be awesome. They could have their own records and everything so they would not be competing against those who remained stimulant-free. Obviously we would have to stick to strictly legal drugs, a drawback in my opinion, so we would not be having folks snorting a gram of high-quality coke before going out for a dead-lift competition. At the other end of the spect
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
> Else every Tour de France rider would have a TUE
> for Clenbuterol.
Well, if they're all on it, then no one has an advantage. So what's the problem?
Re: (Score:2)
>The whole point of a competition is to find people who are *naturally* extraordinary
Ha, in professional and olympic league sports that's not been true for quite some time. You see it in China where they take young kids and their entire life becomes training. They eat special diets, they take weird drug cocktails that influence their growth. Buy the time they compete they are not on anything you can test for, but they have been grown just for that purpose just like a plant. Ya, a lot of them fail out, an
Re: (Score:2)
Gamers who have actual ADD/ADHD would benefit from not taking meds when competing in games like these, since these games are heavily dependant on fast reflexes, and those with ADD/ADHD have their reaction/impulsiveness slowed down as one of the effects of these meds due to the different neurochemistry, while those who don't have ADD/ADHD benefit from taking these substances, because they react faster/become more impulsive(and more aggressive)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure that is true. Yes, people with ADD will probably be attracted to video games enough to enjoy them and thereby get enough skill and practice in to become a pro at it.
However, you don't gain anything from being twitchy and inattentive when actually in competition. You want fast reflexes, especially in a shooter, but if you're playing a team game, you need to know what is going on with your team and focus on your task. Something like Adderall can probably help with that.
Re: (Score:2)
ADD/ADHD does not mean that you become inattentive at everything. One of the things with ADD/ADHD is that if something DOES catch your attention, you can do it for hours on end, particularly if it stimulates the brain. It's the mundane routine stuff that tends to be discarded, like household chores etc.
In my personal experience, Strattera interferes with my ability to perform in some sports, while it helps with my daily life, such as doing household chores.
Re: (Score:3)
Am I mistaken in believing that a large portion of the gaming population suffers from ADD/ADHD
I wouldn't say I "suffer" from it, Bob.
What's performance enhancing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I expect that for each for those, there's a point where the benefits of consumption are overwhelmed by the intensifying effect of the drug. AKA, a little helps, a lot hurts. The same holds true for alcohol's impact on one's ability to solve problems creatively (anecdotally, at least).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It's all just speculation at this point.
There are chess tournaments that banned nicotine, and from what I understood tests for doping in e-sports have previously only been done for performance enhancing drugs more commonly used in other sports.
What ESL decides to go after this time no-one but them knows.
At this point the people who compete at the highest level in any sport will go to extreme lengths to get an advantage, the reason to ban certain substances is because one shouldn't have to risk permanent dam
Re:What's performance enhancing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does caffeine count? What about marijuana? It seems like it would dull your reaction time, but it might make you more calm, so it's hard to say. How about coke or meth? Seems like those would make you too jittery.
IWANCAACA (I Was An NCAA College Athlete-I also just wanted to make up a new acronym). The NCAA considers caffeine a banned substance. If you have a certain amount in your system when tested it is no different than if you had traces of marijuana or steroids in your system. Of course, a couple cans of Coke wouldn't be enough to trigger it. You would have to go to Jessie Spannow levels for it to trigger.
Re:What's performance enhancing? (Score:4, Funny)
Technically, caffeine is not a drug: it's a major food group.
Re: (Score:2)
Does caffeine count? What about marijuana?
It's interesting you mention those together because a Cafe' Mota is the shiz
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe, it makes some sense. However, have seen similar anecdotal evidence from LSD.
So long time ago, back when I was a pool player and bar fly....a friend called me up "I dropped acid and am bored, lets go out". We met up at the bar, she was lit but handling it well. We grabbed a pool table and started to play.
Now, I was shooting a lot of pool back then. I was decent, we all were. This was a girl I used to partner up with at casual tournaments occasionally, so I was very familiar with how she shot....and sh
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think pattern recognition is part of it. Think about the effects.
What does flat white wall do? It stretches, it breathes. Maybe lines or shadows on it dance a bit, maybe the pervasive color line pattern you see behind your eyes projects onto it.
However a candle flickering through faceted glass, that could become a kaleidoscope of cartoon skulls in a burst of colors.
I saw a ted talk about the mind and pattern recognition.... how the mind has chains of pattern recognizers and seeing one part of a pattern po
No performance enhancing drugs? (Score:1)
Well, there go the Mountain Dew and Monster sponsorships...
Re: (Score:2)
Adderall?... Complicted. (Score:4, Informative)
I was thinking it would be some ritalin based medicin, and adderall is particularly abused, and maybe shouldn't even be used the way it is. But this is important: It still requires a prescription to get, so in the end by banning it, they would be forbidding people from taking their prescribed medication. Even if it is widely abused, there are a some that needs it.
Even in cycling they allow drugs that are otherwise banned, if a doctor prescribes it and documents the athlete needs it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I was thinking it would be some ritalin based medicin, and adderall is particularly abused, and maybe shouldn't even be used the way it is. But this is important: It still requires a prescription to get, so in the end by banning it, they would be forbidding people from taking their prescribed medication. Even if it is widely abused, there are a some that needs it.
Here's the problem. Since it's a performance-enhancing drug whether you're prescribed it or not, it's simply unfair to permit anyone to take it while prohibiting other drugs. But you can't prohibit something someone's been prescribed. So basically, they're announcing that their games will be unfair from now on... not that I gave a shit before this. If I want to watch someone play a video game, it'll be me. I guess that's why I never got into watching sports, either. I can just go outside and do something.
Re: (Score:1)
To someone who really needs it, you can't really call it performance enhancing. Rather, it brings their performance to a normal level that someone who doesn't need it is already at.
Re: (Score:2)
To someone who really needs it, you can't really call it performance enhancing. Rather, it brings their performance to a normal level that someone who doesn't need it is already at.
Life is not full of booleans, it's a complicated place. Some people won't even be at the normal level after they take whatever it is. Some people will be beyond it. And are you checking up on their dosage? For that matter, is their doctor? Lots of people just get prescribed whatever whether it's really appropriate or not, and if they don't complain to their doctor then they just keep getting renewed. The doctor gets paid and gets them out of his hair, so he wins, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Adderall is meant to allow ADHD minded individuals able to cope better with life in general. Their disability, if disability it is, happens to be with the larger picture of living, maintaining a job, etc. That is what they have Adderall for.
That disability has little to do with video gaming, as games tend to be short and very engrossing. That means that someone who *needs* Adderall, may still derive just as much of an enhancement from it as someone who doesn't need Adderall to deal with life in general.
T
Re: (Score:2)
WTF does naturally even mean?
If you take two 'master race' parents (because epigenetics) bred them and then trained their child every day and only fed them a very good diet, and they were sponsored their life so didn't have to worry about making a living, would that be natural? By your definition, yes, it's just selective breeding for the purpose of sports. That's the kind of stuff that is happening already.
Re: (Score:1)
My favorite kind of nerd is the one that posts comments on Slashdot, but is somehow above the activity of watching video games or sports.
Can you try any harder?
Do you next wish to tell me how little you know about sports, or whatever else you do to try and inflate your "nerd status"? It gets tiring.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
they would be forbidding people from taking their prescribed medication
No. They'd be forbidding people from taking part in the competition.
Probably depends on the drug. Several types of asthma medication is considered doping unless you have astma. If I remember correctly some 50% of professional bicycle riders officially have asthma.
Re:Just get diagnosed with ADHD and be done. (Score:4, Interesting)
At that point it becomes a prerequisite: you gotta be a great gamer, know your stuff, practice AND have ADHD. So much of it that you function normally on bucketloads of Adderall. You're the twitchy equivalent of a Kenyan long-distance runner with the toothpicks for legs, you've reached your final form ;)
It's horrible but it's also interesting. I've studied this stuff a bit. It doesn't bother me when you have categorical advantage but it gets more worrying when part of the 'qualification' is a dark history that leaves the hapless 'competer' human wreckage with nothing to live for but the will to win, forever unsatisfied unless they are crushing their opponents. Yet that's part of the formula, and a surprising amount of sports and entertainment is the wrangling of these freakish entities and trying to keep them from wrecking their teams, their bands, their lives etc.
You can't get away from this in any competitive sphere including life itself: when it comes down to the cult of the individual, it is ALWAYS possible to guarantee victory if you're okay with it being Pyrhhic. A sense of self-preservation or honoring the sport/context/environment is a handicap, and so you get Lance Armstrong every time, to a greater or lesser extent. That's what winning IS.
Interesting expressing these thoughts for the first time on a site where (a) there's huge respect for the cult of the winner and (b) there's also an entire subculture of shared cooperating, open source, and truly free software that is literally the opposite approach: trying to tear down all barriers to produce a context where anything is possible to anyone, without obstacle.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you suggesting that they don't actually have asthma? A significant percentage of the population has asthma, it's not unexpected that a significant number of pro cyclists would have it as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Anything that can be gamed will be gamed, hell I'm sure some of the lesser riders are told not to game the system so the percentages of "sufferers" doesn't become too obvious.
10% of MLB players have ADD/ADHD supposedly, yeah right.
Re: (Score:2)
His mom is Kate Upton?
Taking course of Complex Analysis (Score:1)
I am taking course of Complex Analysis. To understand the subject, textbook should be sold with pack of drugs.
So testing for (Score:1)
What, RedBull and Hot Pockets?
Ya Ok.....
Re: (Score:2)
Well, Red Bull actually. Okay, just caffiene, but...
Drug use should be mandatory (Score:3)
I would find sports in general much more exciting if drug use were mandatory. Imagine how entertaining football would be if one team were pumped full of PCP and the other was tripping balls on bath salts?
Re: (Score:2)
I would find sports in general much more exciting if drug use were mandatory.
Hmmm . . . The phrase "Criminal Drug Evasion" pops into my mind . . . THX-1138
SNL predicted it years ago.... (Score:2)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4090 [hulu.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Whaddya mean 'if'? ;)
End of "professional" gaming? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Caffeine (at least above a certain level) is regulated in epretty much every sport that does PED testing.
BULLSHIT
http://www.menshealth.com/health/are-olympic-athletes-legally-doping
Though Olympic officials once placed limits on its consumption, since 2004 athletes have been able to freely sip coffee or energy drinks, take caffeine pills, or chew caffeinated gum in search of that extra edge.
And recent research suggests up to three-fourths of the world’s elite athletes do just that. Take now-retired Scottish cyclist Chris Hoy, a six-time gold medalist. He’s so committed to his caffeine regimen that h
Does this test for Red Bull? (Score:2)
Or Cheetos?
Aw.... (Score:2)
..and there goes my big chance in the pro leagues.
Time to return to my mom's basement and balance meth for reflexes against some bong hits for total focus and crank up my three thousand dollar gaming system -- for nothing.
rgb
esport (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
How America got hooked on legal speed (Score:2)
Obviously, players in the NFL are going to be subjected to different test panels than players in the NCAA or Olympics, but for your convenience, here is the WADA list of banned substances [wada-ama.org]
You will find most of the usual things there, "street drugs", etc, and of course, gamers drug of choice, Amphet
Atheletes are disposable (Score:2)
Athletes are to sport as dixie cups are to drinking. Use once, dispose, move on to the next.
Athletics is just another way to move money from poor people to rich people.
A question (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Football, basketball, soccer, hockey... all those are games. The day professional basketball/soccer players stop bouncing/kicking balls and get "real jobs", that day you can ask the same from professional videogame players.
Re: (Score:3)
Football, basketball, soccer, hockey... all those are games. The day professional basketball/soccer players stop bouncing/kicking balls and get "real jobs", that day you can ask the same from professional videogame players.
I hope this day comes. All of these "sports", while individually fun to play in to some degree, stop being fun when there's money and spectators involved. I don't know how anyone can watch so-and-so pratfall to draw a yellow card, or billy joe step in front of a ball to get on a base, e
Re: (Score:2)
This is a very silly objection, and I'll tell you why.
I routinely start watching a set of Minecraft youtubers for a thing called 'Mindcrack UHC'. I know the playstyles of many of the players, what can be expected of them, even some of the unusual team-ups worthy of a pro wrestling storyline (hi, Vechs/BTC/Nebs!).
They are BOXES running around. I have no idea what they actually look like, nor am I really interested.
Video games have the capacity to become the athletics version of Asian avatar popstars: it help
Re: (Score:1)
This is true, I tend to watch sports for the fit bodies.
Same reason I watch porn.
Re: (Score:1)
I love watching people play video games but I have not found watching competitions all that fun. I do not even play games any more. I just like watching them. I actually have a PS3 and an X Box One set up for people to play when they stop over. I do not even know how to play any of the games except for a golf game and I do not even really play that. Ah well... I do like watching people play fighting games such as the Street Fighter line of games. I used to play Street Fighter a lot but, still, I do not play
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son"
I can't believe there is such a thing as "professional gamer". That's why our society has gone to shit.
Hey loser, get off the couch, grow up and get a real job!
I'd hate to live in a world that meets your approval.
What about pro sports? What about singers? Actors? Any and all types of entertainment?
Because the only reason there are professionals in any of those is because people are willing to pay to be entertained.
Re: (Score:2)
Like it or not, gaming is big business that you can actually make lots of money with. Heck, my wife and I used to level up chars in EverQuest 2 and sell them on Sony's marketplace. We go
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine competitive Rubik's Cube solving to make it more understandable. That clearly involves intense physical dexterity, but also extremely rapid situational analysis and execution. It might not look as entertaining as football because it's way harder to know where the athlete is going with their cube (in football, you can see what's intended from the outside) but it's more or less the same type of thing.
Same with competitive gaming, with the advantage that if you know the game you can (like football) fol
Re: (Score:2)
In pretty much every televised sport, the ball is the point of focus. If the ball goes to one person, the people on the other side of the field don't really matter. In CS:Go or a MOBA, you can have a lot of stuff going on simultaneously that is not easy to follow.
That goes double if you are trying to display it TV-style where it can be followed from a distance. It is one thing to watch a HOTS match fulls
Re: (Score:2)
Queue up the flame throwers in 3....2....1...
You are crushing the dreams of all those 30 something gamers who live in their mother's basement so they can spend every last dime on the latest game and hardware to run it on. These guys don't go down without putting up a really big flame war fight, well at least until their mom turns off the cable modem at their 9:30 bedtime... Good luck Mr. Bunker... You will need it.
Re: (Score:2)
Gaming is obviously pretty low intensity for most muscles, though the rigor of the mental drill is considerable; and the amount of carpal tunnel and similar injuries are actually alar
Re: (Score:2)
The only way to 'lose' while gaming is to lose sight of the fact that it's supposed to be for fun.
lost friends and lovers don't count?
Re: (Score:3)
Just a few samples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Pro Gamers don't just screw off and do whatever all day. They do have to train and compete at an insane level. Sure, you or I can hop on and play games of Starcraft II, just like
Motorsport (Score:2)
Well, some people still don't think Motorsport is a real sport, but that hasn't stopped series like F1 from becoming (at one point) the second most televised sport in the world. Similarly Nascar and Indy have pretty major followings and the World Rally Championship did too when the drivers were still crazy.
Personally I don't get the whole e-sport thing, but I also don't think the fact that the competitors aren't training like athletes is any reason it can't become a massive global industry, with hundreds of
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Fishing, for example, is a sport
If you put it that way, then tying your shoes or brushing your teeth is also a sport.
Re: (Score:2)
It could be, if you are doing so competitively. I just don't think it would be a very popular sport.
Again sports != athletics.
A name for old time gunslinger/gamblers in the Old West who played poker and bet on horses for a living was they were "sporting men". While you can certainly admire the reflexes of a gunfighter, they were actually called sporting men because of their livelihood as professional gamblers, and there is no need for any sort of athleticism for that job description.
Re: (Score:2)
Both billiards and baton twirling are considered sports, and they're no more physically demanding than gaming, but do require developing and refining skills in order to be competitive. Golf is another perfect example and it's really apt as for most people it is a leisure ac
Re: (Score:2)
If enough people do it, yes it will.