One of the best things about video games has always been that you can show off how much better you are at it than another person. This is why we have ranking systems and online sharing and all these other features to be the very best, like no one ever was. In recent years this has taken a bigger twist, to the point where the competitive nature of some of the most popular games becomes a spectacle of itself, and eSports are on the rise. Turn to ESPN2 on a slow news day and see League of Legends matches between some of the highest-ranked players in the world. The EA Sports Madden Ultimate League apparently has its own subsection on the WatchESPN app. Ultimately, I am in support of the growing eSports movement, and have enjoyed watching some of these events.
Way back when, I think around 2006, I was first exposed to the idea of playing video games competitively. Growing up, I really only played single-player (and still do to this day) and the only competitiveness came from wanting to have a story that one-upped that of a classmate or friend. But on some slow weekend in baseball season, as I was absolutely not going to watch baseball, I stumbled upon an ESPN showing of some Madden 2005 tournament. It was a crazy show, with surprising focus given to sort of reality show elements in almost equal part to the gameplay. I got super invested in players who used systems that I liked, or tried to play in what I felt was the best way and wound up watching some 6 hours that one day. And it is good fun, I think, to see people who are so passionate about something, no matter what it is really, and do it extraordinarily well. There is a sort of artistry to mastering a game that is similar to the artistry that goes into creating it. More recently, some of the eSports communities have grown bigger than short tournaments for cash prizes and have become a profession. My favorite of these is pictured above, the eMLS cup. In this case, the real professional football clubs in the US and Canada have signed top-ranked players and supporters of their teams to eSports contracts, providing them with sponsorship in exchange for their representation of their brand. This kicked off (no pun intended) just a few weeks ago at the PAX East convention, the first time all 19 of these now professional EA Sports FIFA players came together to bring to their club a piece of pretty legitimate silverware. The show was really enthralling, and I wound up being more invested in these games of FIFA than I was in the actual game of real-life football I had on the TV. The surprisingly full crowd, the commentary from former MLS players, and the incredible skill of these people playing the same game I have put hundreds of hours in was really incredible.There's a sort of meta-game to these sorts of eSporting events, and with so many different ways to build teams and play the game each match brought its own excitement.
As much as I enjoy eSports and so many others seem to as well, I don't think this is a thing that needs to get much bigger than it is. I think it is great when this sort of thing stays in its own chunk of the market, with passionate fans and invested spectators coming together to enjoy something wonderful. However, if this were to try to grow too much, and to attempt to become "legitimized" to the level of an Olympic sort or something of that degree, I don't think I would enjoy it as much. In the same way that many people harp on the classification of chess as a sport, should the eSports community attempt to garner that same sort of respect, their would be enormous push-back from especially vocal groups that would take much of the joy out of the thing. I love that eSports are a thing, and that they are growing in their own market, but I would hate to see it go the way of some of the larger sports leagues, where excessive media coverage and repeated scandal take the joy out of the games being played.
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