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The E-Sports Thread


Krone

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Sport is a dumb word. Being that good at League of Legends is super impressive. Just like being very good at chess is super impressive. It's a game, not a sport. There's nothing wrong with competitive spectator games, the semantics argument is dumb though.

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Saying something isn't a sport doesn't necessarily mean it's any less of what it is, though. It's like saying "If it's a sport, it's good. And if it's not, it sucks". I don't think people are making that argument.

Or yeah, what Pizza said.

That's exactly what the implication is, though. Nobody's outright said that, but the implication from all of these posts about whether it's a sport or not is "hurrrr, a bunch of nerds sitting on their asses playing video games, and that's a sport?"

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If your "training" consists of sitting in a chair, playing videogames and pounding energy drinks, its not a sport and your not an athlete

I actually don't agree with that. I feel like it is a sport. Training is training and it requires skill

You can "train" at anything though. Would you call writing a sport? It requires practice and skill. :P

I see opposing me is a sport for you today! :lol:

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Saying something isn't a sport doesn't necessarily mean it's any less of what it is, though. It's like saying "If it's a sport, it's good. And if it's not, it sucks". I don't think people are making that argument.

Or yeah, what Pizza said.

That's exactly what the implication is, though. Nobody's outright said that, but the implication from all of these posts about whether it's a sport or not is "hurrrr, a bunch of nerds sitting on their asses playing video games, and that's a sport?"

But again, you're taking the fact that it being called not a sport as an insult. I don't think it's a sport in the least bit, but I still find the skill of the players to be incredibly impressive. I guess I don't understand why the need to have the "sport" label attached is so important?

If your "training" consists of sitting in a chair, playing videogames and pounding energy drinks, its not a sport and your not an athlete

I actually don't agree with that. I feel like it is a sport. Training is training and it requires skill

You can "train" at anything though. Would you call writing a sport? It requires practice and skill. :P

I see opposing me is a sport for you today! :lol:

Have I been opposing you today? All I remember is you calling me out for holding you down for something. :( 

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I'm not sure if any of you know who Yanet Garcia is (I'd imagine so since it's the internet). The Mexican weather girl that god famous for obvious reasons.

Yanet-Garcia.jpg

Go figure, her boyfriend is a competitive Call of Duty player. Even gamers can get the ladies :shifty:

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I'm taking it as an insult because people are being insulting about it. There's a difference between saying "it's not a sport, but I respect what they do and realize how hard they train", and saying things like this:  

How is E-Sport different to me just jumping online and playing other people (with the exception of the money at stake)?

 

If your "training" consists of sitting in a chair, playing videogames and pounding energy drinks, its not a sport and your not an athlete

Those are - Lint's post moreso - deliberately worded in a way to be insulting to people that are either fans of eSports or active participants. I don't know where Rich actually stands on it, other than just trying to get a rise out of Krone, but when someone attacks something you like in such a way as Lint did, why wouldn't I be defensive of it? 

 

Edited by Cloudy
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I'm taking it as an insult because people are being insulting about it. There's a difference between saying "it's not a sport, but I respect what they do and realize how hard they train", and saying things like this:  

How is E-Sport different to me just jumping online and playing other people (with the exception of the money at stake)?

 

If your "training" consists of sitting in a chair, playing videogames and pounding energy drinks, its not a sport and your not an athlete

Those are - Lint's post moreso - deliberately worded in a way to be insulting to people that are either fans of eSports or enjoy watching them. I don't know where Rich actually stands on it, other than just trying to get a rise out of Krone, but when someone attacks something you like in such a way as Lint did, why wouldn't I be defensive of it? 

 

Man, I don't pay attention to Lint. I thought you took issue with something I said. :P 

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I think it's actually more competitive than most sports. The bar to entry is far lower: you don't need other people local to you to play competitively, the equipment costs are likely either on par or cheaper, I think there is less natural advantage (quite a few sports if you're 6'3"+ you will have an advantage) and I'm not sure that there is a reason why women playing should be less competitive than men. 

On the flip side I find it boring as fuck to watch. At the moment there doesn't seem to be a great way to cast most of these events. You sort of want to see 3-4 things at once, what Team A is seeing/doing, what Team B is seeing/doing. What this actually means (being able to see the entire map, where everyone is and what they're doing (like in 'normal' sports) as well as any highlights currently happening. I think that's the biggest detriment to most current big games, there isn't a ball to follow which is at the centre of everything in most sports. Like if I'm watching aussie rules/soccer it doesn't really matter what a defender is doing when the ball is up the other end of the field, but in e-sports quite often 2-3 big things are all happening at once. It seems odd to me that the biggest events are the ones that are the hardest to watch as a spectator.

Plus generally whilst they are doing their best the commentary isn't up to par with regular sports. Your new audience really needs everything explained and often this part is missed. Likewise when big stuff happens they generally get all squealy and kind of forget their job is meant to be to explain why what is happening is important.

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I feel like that can be pretty dependent on the caster/commentator in a lot of cases, but yeah, they do get over-excited and sort of lost in the moment. When I watched competitive Starcraft II, for instance, guys like Day9, Artosis and Tasteless were all generally good. Day9 would get excited about things, but he'd be able to reign it in and explain what was going on.

On the flipside, I was watching a Heroes of the Storm tournament this weekend with my cousin, and the commentators on it were all a bit rubbish. I'm only familiar with Heroes in passing and know how it works because I've played League of Legends and watched plenty of pro LoL tournaments, but that's no substitute - the commentators would get excited, forget to explain what was going on, and then I'd have to turn to my cousin and ask "So, I guess his ability does ____?" or "What does _____'s ability do, again?"

And speaking of tournaments, does anyone know when the first Hearthstone tournament post-expansion is? The Grand Tournament just came out today, so I'm assuming that sometime this week or next there'll be a few tournaments going on.

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Esports is in the dictionary. It's a thing. If it weren't a sport, they wouldn't admit it written as esports. Seems pretty simple. Also it's a college sport, schools do offer some amount of scholarship to it, but I think it uses different regulations than NCAA.

Also, if you're going to rubbish esports "training" then meet CS:GO player "Freakazoid" who plays for Cloud 9.

kFaHrYP.jpg

 

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That makes no sense. A chess player could decide they wanted to run super-marathons, it doesn't mean you need to to play chess :/ If anything it actually hurts the argument. Most pro athletes don't have the ability to spend hours on end during their season doing something that has nothing to do with their sport.

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A lot of these guys though make enough money to where they can sustain a healthy living while working out 'as a hobby' of sorts. For me, I work 6-8 hours a day. Tack on another 6-8 to practice and you're looking at 12-16 hours of what you could call "work" - not including running errands, showers, making meals and the such. So it's almost like a double edge sword. Sure these guys are pro for a reason, but they're also pro because they can put in all that time due to their success. That's not to say that some people aren't just naturally gifted at console shooters and the such, but when you can only practice for half of the time because you have to go to a real job, it already puts you behind the 8 ball.

Take the next Call of Duty for example - Black Ops 3. I was amazingly good at Black Ops 2, back when that was the only thing I had to focus on. But once you have bills to pay, mouths to feed, you can't rely on just becoming big over night. So that pro that get's the game opening night has the ability to play it for 16-18 hours a day where as the people striving to get there can't because of school or work. That's why I feel you never really see a lot of 'newer' players become pro unless they are younger - because they don't have those responsibilities. And if they do have those responsibilities, then they are either already pro or probably never going to reach it unless you literally play til your eyes fall out (which is what I've been doing and has led to insomnia/anxiety and such).

Put it this way. Every Sunday there are online 'big money' tournaments for CoD hosted by GameBattles. I'm talking $3,000-$4,000 for first place. If you win two of those in a month, you're already looking at $750-$1500 alone off of tournaments. That's not counting other smaller side tournaments or the big LAN's. Hell, CoD has a big tourney every year with first place taking home $400,000. Split four ways and with a sponsor getting a share, you're looking at $60,000 per person. That's more than I will make in the next 2-3 years combined off one weekend of gaming. Then take into account $50,000 tournaments x3, maybe a $100,000 tournament and you're talking a good chunk of change. That's from CoD alone and I know the PC gaming gives out some pretty damn impressive prize pools (with crowd funding as well) that exceed that. 

Then you've got streaming where people make money off ad revenue, donations, and or subscribers. Add on the profit from YouTube and a lot of these guys are making money hand over fist.

Lastly there's the equipment. For someone like me, I have to buy a Scuf controller for the XBox ($200) + a top of the line headset ($250) and a monitor ($150-$200) and you're already at $600. That's a ton of change to drop on that shit. These pros, they get free headsets, controllers, hell even expensive ass gaming chairs that save them an asinine amount of money.

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I'm taking it as an insult because people are being insulting about it. There's a difference between saying "it's not a sport, but I respect what they do and realize how hard they train", and saying things like this:  

How is E-Sport different to me just jumping online and playing other people (with the exception of the money at stake)?

 

If your "training" consists of sitting in a chair, playing videogames and pounding energy drinks, its not a sport and your not an athlete

Those are - Lint's post moreso - deliberately worded in a way to be insulting to people that are either fans of eSports or active participants. I don't know where Rich actually stands on it, other than just trying to get a rise out of Krone, but when someone attacks something you like in such a way as Lint did, why wouldn't I be defensive of it? 

 

Oh go do one Cloudy if you think I was being insulting, I am just trying to get a frame of reference for what this actually is as I have never heard of competitive gaming actually being a thing this popular.  I literally thought it was just "Ok let's all play COD together and let the best man win" rather than something that is this well organised, so I may have been unaware of what this is, but I was not being insulting.

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This wasn't anything incredible, but Major League Gaming used to produce top 10's similar to ESPN back in the day for Halo and I was fortunate enough to make it on one. Funny thing is, the play they put on there actually ended up being used in the opening montage for a couple of future events as well which was kind of mind blowing for me. Play #8 lads.

The best part about it was I remember hitting that clip like it was yesterday. Early in the morning and after I landed that I looked for the triple kill, couldn't find it, and literally just set my controller down. Probably my favorite accomplishment to date just because back in the day all my friends would watch these and one of them actually happened to watch it before I even knew I made it on there.

Edited by Krone
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I'm taking it as an insult because people are being insulting about it. There's a difference between saying "it's not a sport, but I respect what they do and realize how hard they train", and saying things like this:  

How is E-Sport different to me just jumping online and playing other people (with the exception of the money at stake)?

 

If your "training" consists of sitting in a chair, playing videogames and pounding energy drinks, its not a sport and your not an athlete

Those are - Lint's post moreso - deliberately worded in a way to be insulting to people that are either fans of eSports or enjoy watching them. I don't know where Rich actually stands on it, other than just trying to get a rise out of Krone, but when someone attacks something you like in such a way as Lint did, why wouldn't I be defensive of it? 

 

Man, I don't pay attention to Lint. I thought you took issue with something I said. :P 

:( I always liked you @Meacon

 

Anyway, maybe I should clarify what I meant.  No, I don't consider competitive CoD or anything like that to be a sport, nor the people who play it competitively to be athletes.  I'm not saying it doesn't take skill to do.  It certainly does, and I wish I could be even 1/4 as good at some of these games as people are.  While I didn't watch it live, I watched a lot of the first Rocket League championship afterwards and was amazed at some of the shots people there made.  The way the final ended I sat there with my jaw dropped for a good minute just like "Holy shit...that was incredible".  The ability, at least in that game, to see the ball on the field and knowing the right angle to hit it into the goal just boggles my mind

 

My issue is the terminology.  Professional gamer and competitive gaming?  My opinion would do a complete 180 and I'd have no issue with it.  E-sport and e-athelete?  No...I just can't buy into that for some reason

Edited by Lint
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