Mattj

Greetings to all. I've read the e-j forums for a while now finding them useful and informative but not posting. Now, however, I need all of your help more directly, so here's a brain teaser for you.

I'm giving a short presentation to a group of undergraduates, graduates and fellows at the university of Cambridge in the UK. The talk has to be on a subject outside of my academic expertise but which I have a special interest in and insight into so... it's eSports. Specifically could, should and even perhaps do eSports exist in a form which can claim legitimate status as a collection of sports. In order to do this I'll be begining obviously by analysing what constitutes a 'sport' and concluding that giving a unitary definition which includes all sports but excludes all non-sports is impossible. I'll then suggest that the only criterion for the legitimacy of the phrase eSports is whether mainstream society accepts videogaming as a sporting activity. The bulk of my presentation will be assessing what the criterion for accepting something as a sport are and whether videogames do or could meet these criterion. As to the question of 'should' eSports be considered sports simpliciter, I'll look at western society's perception of gamers, the way it contrasts with eastern societies' perceptions and assessing whether there is anything essentially bad about playing videogames.

The aim of the presentation is to raise questions rather than answer them, stimulating debate which does not rely on participants having any previous specialist knowledge.

What I would very much like from you guys is any feedback at all related to any issue you think is relevant but especially pointing to related articles in the mainstream or gaming media that I might have missed, statistics which are very hard to come by (at all accurate $value of the games sales/games subscriptions/games merchandise markets as compared with television, film for example), and, more fun, very short suitable video and/or audio clips which might illustrate to a lay-person the tactical or physical impressiveness of gaming in any game at a high or even professional level. It's obviously very hard to come by short clips (20,30 secs max) which do justice to the incredibly impressive coordination required of WoW guilds in tricky encounters. I could do with wow movies that include vent as well as or preferably instead of music. Also useful would be a clip of some impressive bit of tactical thinking by a CS player or similar with TsN commentary or something like that to explain what's going on. I thought this would be a great place to come to see if anyone can point me in the right direction.

Sorry for the wall of text and thank you very much if you can help. Much love from a retired raider.

 

• goss

I don't have the materials for such a transition handy, but I think the formation of a 4H strat taken to execution would be neat to see. Taking the initial theorycrafting (even from the "serious" discussions on the R&D forums) to Excel spreadsheets customizing the rotations, to a video with vent discussion or even after the fact commentary.

 

Linbog

I know MTV has done some coverage of CS tournaments/shows about gamers.. that would probably cover what you want. In one I saw it was a profile of one of the all girl CS teams and there was a clip of her calling positions into her mic at a tournament.

 

Ayle

One of the most impressive things I've seen is watching WC3 pros hands as they play... insanely fast movement/reactions.

 

Mattj

Thank you very much for your comments so far; that sounds like a really smart plan goss, to look at that option all I need to find now is a recording of a 4HM encounter (a wipe might even be best) with vent commentary. Anyone of you lovely people point me at such a thing?

 

songster

I don't know of anything currently accepted as a sport that doesn't require significant amounts of physical exertion from the players. This would seem to be necessary, though not sufficient, to qualify something as a sport.

You can't replace that requirement by invoking mental effort, because pastimes such as chess have been around for hundreds of years, and are widely accepted to be games, and not sports. Nor can you invoke team play, since card games such as bridge are once again not sports.

Given that, "eSport" is simply a contradiction in terms. How do you intend to get around this very obvious gaping hole in the argumentation?

Edit: I mean cardiovascular exertion, not simply movements of hands and arms - otherwise playing the piano would be regarded as a sport. Can you give an example of anything widely accepted as a sport which does *not* involve significant exercise?

 

norg

To come up with two off the top of my head, darts and snooker require very little physical effort, but I believe they're classed as sports.

 

Eugorym

People's definitions of sports vary. Chess is covered (all though very briefly) in Sports Illustrated, and is also referred to as the "Sport of Kings" by some so it is not correct to say chess is always considered a game and not a sport.

 

songster

Hum. OK, I'll retract. Though I personally wouldn't call darts a sport, it seems the Sports Council of Britain decided that it was one - in 2005. Not sure if there's an official word on snooker - I think "the man on the street" would see it as not-really-a-sport, though.

However, on thinking further about things like rifle shooting etc. which *are* generally regarded as sports, I guess I haven't a leg to stand on.

Carry on, ignore me.

 

Oneiros

Coming from someone who used to play competitive CS and DoD, I would definately say that some videogames qualify as eSports. WoW is not one of these, in my opinion.

I believe in Harvey Dent.

 

• goss

Can you explain why you wouldn't categorize them the same way?

 

Mattj

I think that you can probably refine your argument by claiming that what really upsets, or perhaps unnerves people is that videogames take part in virtual space rather than in real space. While mouse and keyboard movements obviously take part in real space the level of disconnection from reality in a videogame is much greater even than that down a gun-sports scope. I'd probably contend that this is no cause for concern and that it is inevitably the case that the more people are immersed in virtual space in their work and leisure, the less disconcerting the notion of a sport taking place largely in virtual space will be, so it seems to me.

 

Groglox

eSports are 100% a legitimate sport. I used to work for various eSports webpages covering Warcraft 3 doing Shoutcasting, Audio Commentaries, and went to World Cyber Games in 2004 to cover the event. From that you really garner a new respect for these players. As an example, we can take 4k.Grubby (Manuel Schenkuisen) of the netherlands: he went with his team to Korea for a few months to train for 10-12 hours a day or more. Some players have apm (actions per minute - basically the number of clicks and keypresses per minute) in the 4 and 5 hundreds.

I would reccomend checking out worldcybergames.com. They are pretty much the biggest international tournament in the world right now for a wide selection of games, and have lots of great VOD's of actual matches.

 

Mattj

Seems that the issue is probably one of competition. While wow guilds compete against each other to progress such competition is an indirect result of striving against the server. It seems hard to find an example of an accepted sport which is a close analogy to wow in that respect. Competitive.... bridge building? Such things must exist, but yeah, it seems a much further leap to me too, if not necessarily a leap (or bridge? lol) too far.

 

Coriolis

Hehe I think that comment by itself should help you spark debate... why would some person including the above poster say CS is a sport but not wow? CS requires very quick reactions, and good *fast* teamwork and tactical thinking by your team mates. WoW on the other hand in high-end raiding (and perhaps in upcoming arena matches) requires concentration over I'd think a longer period of time, knowledge of the many factors of the game and strategic teamwork. You need to know what people can do and figure out what's the optimal thing for them to do, then make them do it (as a raid leader). Twitch reflexes however don't matter much, at least not nearly on the same scale. So does that make it not a sport and CS a sport?

Well frankly I don't know or care, I despise sports personally but this should be interesting to the OP ;).

Edit: as for the factor of competition arena matches will provide that unless they screw them up badly in some way I can't forsee.

 

• goss

A RL sports analogy might be golf? You're competing with other players, but only against their progress - the minute to minute challenges are versus environment.

 

Rennoko

Golf and bowling also require a great deal less exertion than most "classic" sports.

I think people tend to associate sport with something that takes a great deal of commitment and expertise, physical exertion is just a plus, looking at the more popular sports in the USA (Football, Baseball, etc).

Now the logistics aside, someone who has a genuine ability or expertise at a computer game does not fall into the same category. In any sport you can think of, you manipulate something to produce a desired outcome. There may be many variations, but its all the same concept.

People who watch and play sports, understand those sports. Those sports have been around for 100's of years in some cases. Computer games are still very new to the world, and are ever changing.

In computer gaming, you manipulate a user interface, to produce a desired result in a fictional world. The constraints of that world are predefined and often ever changing. So few people can really get into that type of concept, as its very hard to grasp something that changes with each type of game.

There is no simple rule set that you can use to govern the complexity of a computer game. If people cant understand something, they feel confused and angry. Even after years of any game, most people dont know everything there is to know. However after watching baseball for a few months, i can be familiar with all the rules.

The long and short of it is, there is no way to really appreciate the skill it takes to coordinate a 4-horseman raid without understanding how the mobs interact with the players, how the players interact with the mobs, how the spells interact with everyone, and the complexity of that encounter versus so many other encounters. And in the end, its just people hitting keys on a keyboard, which is far less exciting than watching a quarterback throw the football, or an out fielder catch a fly ball.

The end result is what looks like a movie of little human like characters casting spells and moving around other things casting spells with no real goal in mind but to kill the other human like people. To those of us that understand how the game works and where the lore comes from, this can be very exciting, but how long is an audience of average people willing to watch.

 

FinishHer

Coming from mainly a starcraft background, perhaps you should check out:

worldcybergames.com

Google some of the names of the Japanese players that place high in the Brood wars competition, or the Swedish/US teams that place high in counterstrike.

Check out their webpages and the amount of sponsors for these teams. The Japanese players that consistently win in Starcraft make hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are videos out there of the finals in these sorts of competitions that show explosions and audiences and cheering spectators as well as live commentary. Furthermore, there have been countless articles about Starcraft as the foremost "Esport" in their culture. This term isn't really "new", per se.

Opinion is a medium between knowledge and ignorance.

 

Oneiros

In Counterstrike you have a very pure form of team combat. You are both on a map you knew about well ahead of time. You can also say that your players are generally on the same skill level (as far as reaction time and aiming skills). The purity of the combat comes solely from the dynamics of play. You can pretty much develop any strategy you want, although naturally you will deviate to the more successful ones. Also, like the old saying "No plan outlasts the first bullet," the strength of the team and the individual player is not necessarily in one's rxn time and skill, but rather on their instinct and their ability to make decisions on their own. The player's innate ability to recognize what is happening around him/her and apply problem solving to predict where his/her enemies might be, what order he is going to kill them in, and how fast he needs to do it in order to defuse the bomb fast enough. The game itself is very simple and everyone has virtually the same role: Kill or be killed. There is no feeling in any videogame like the feeling of you being the only player alive in a 1v3 with the match riding on this round.

WoW, on the other hand, is a relatively simple game against monsters who are virtually the same every time you fight them. They have strict mechanics which they adhere to, and once you figure out these mechanics, the fights become trivial. This is not to say the people who accomplish great things in WoW are in any way not spectacular at what they do. This is simply to say that being able to beat the best 5 people in the world with you and four friends is a much more monumental task. The human mind is unencumbered by restrictions or mechanics. Sure, tournament players are very careful, and most of they time, they won't charge straight at you guns blazing. Sometimes, you'll get some crazy charging at you out of nowhere and pop you right in the head. I've killed every boss in Naxx minus KT, and the feeling from the first kills on 4h and Sapphiron was amazing, but being able to conquer a virtually static and predicatable fight versus fighting 5 individual humans with different personalities, different strengths, and different fighting styles is a whole different ball game.

I believe in Harvey Dent.

 

Groglox

Japanese people don't really play Starcraft, I think you are referring to Korean.

 

Surion

I think the real thing that isnt benig pointed out is balance between competing teams.
Think that in things such as FPS games and WC3 your avatars dont becomes repeadedly better and better as they do in WoW. The kill on 4h when you first encounter them is insanely harder than it is after youve killed KT. Not to mention things like all the buffs etc. While it is game mechanics that allow you to become better, it makes it impossibly hard to compare two guilds 4h kills next to comparing two teams in WC3. That is one reason why WoW raiding wont be considered a sport in the same way others are, its impossible to balance. Its like giving one hockey team pro gear and sticks and giving another 2x4's and second rate helmets without gloves.

I'm about passed out, so I hope this post made some sense! ;)

Edit: reading the posts above me again, it came to mind that I cant think of any sports that dont have two teams competing against eachother. Is this not the very essence of what sport means? While in WoW two teams might compete against eachother in who can down X boss or whatnot. They are actually competing against the computer and then entering a ranking from there (whether by time or how many deaths, etc); not actually competing against eachother as in WC3, CS, UT, etc.

 

Brissa

Sounds to me like you should visit www.esreality.com unless of course you already have.

Personally I wouldnt classify WoW as an esport since as has been mentioned the rules and circumstances in which it would be played arent static. (Sure unit balance in games like starcraft and wc3 change as well but thats a completely other ballpark).

 

sulliwan

Using WoW as an example for eSports is a very bad idea since WoW is not a zerosum competitive game.

http://www.esreality.com/ (for mostly Quake-series related stuff)
http://www.xfire.be/ (for ET and RTCW, edit: wrong link first time, bah :P)
http://www.gotfrag.com/

Would be some good websites to start with. I know ESReality should have a timeline of all significant Quake tournaments hidden somewhere in their hall of fame and crossfire has something similar where they count the total amount of money earned in large tournaments and sort it by teams, players and countries. ET/RTCW are not hugely successful eSports, but since this is the community I was most involved with myself, I added crossfire here.
I'm not too familiar with the RTS scene, but Starcraft is probably the most successful eSport ever, with player salaries reaching higher than in most "real" sports. Also, you can't get around CS when talking about eSports so researching the history for significant CS LAN tournaments and most famous players/teams is a very good idea.

 

saramin

I think it mostly has to do with being a spectator event. Certain games aren't really 'watchable' in the sense that it's open to a layman and still visceral to the deep analyzer without being actually behind the keyboard. MMOs have a rough time of it due to so much of gameplay being logistics rather than execution. Complex WoW boss fights and fleet battles in EvE are probably the closest I've seen. It's really just a matter of time though.

As an anecdote, the event that came nearest to causing a riot on the Blizzcon floor wasn't a dev presentation or the BC trailer or the PA guys dancing nude (this may or may not have happened). It was Yellow executing the most geometrically perfect lurker drop I've ever seen and bringing every single person seated in front of the screen to their feet. This is the new world order, gentlemen.

 

Deris

Slightly off topicish but ..


WoW will have an eSports Arena Vidcast in the near future is my guess. Blizzard hired a few eSports Managers 4 or 5 months ago, and my best guess is that it will be for Cross Server Arena Tournaments, which could be *really* awesome, and televised/streamed over the web.. alot like the recent EvE Online tourneys.