When I was a teenager I saw a hilarious movie called ‘BASEketball.’ For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is a very silly comedy about a couple of losers who accidentally invent a sport that becomes inexplicably popular. Even though it is full of dumb-ass jokes and dated cultural references, it still manages to convey a message which spoke to me then and seems even more relevant now than it ever was. At its heart, the movie is a story about an emerging sport, loved by a small community, which ends up being ruined by money-hungry corporate bastards.
We’re at that point now in e-sports. We can no longer pretend that professional gaming is something that is consigned solely to the super-nerd community. ESPN recently broadcast the Dota 2 International tournament, which had a cash prize pot of just south of $11million. When the South Korean international football team was struggling at the previous World Cup, their favourite Starcraft players were brought into the changing rooms to inspire them. League of Legends has 32 million monthly active users, that’s almost the same as the entire population of Canada!
But e-sports are already showing some rather disturbing qualities. Players are plastered with advertisements at every tournament and streaming of these events is becoming increasingly regimented. Over half of the teams at the aforementioned Dota 2 International finals were invited to it, by which I mean, they did not fight their way into it. The only reason I can imagine for this is that the maximisation of profits required the teams with big-money sponsors to be in attendance. In other words, the team’s sponsors opened their wallets and purchased participation in the finals.
I’m not so naïve as to believe that players, venues and sponsors will just fund a tournament out of the kindness of their hearts. I understand that there are overheads that need to be covered. But there are fairer ways of doing it than this. This may seem like a silly comparison to a lot of readers but in English football, there is a tournament called the FA cup. Every team in England is in it. The lower teams in the pyramid start in the first rounds and higher up teams are added in each round. By the third round, every team is (or has been) in it. No teams are guaranteed more than one game and the winner, no matter how early or late they started, has gone on a journey. English football fans love to talk about “the magic of the cup.” The idea that a bunch of part-time nobodies from your home town could end up facing up against a bunch of players who are worth more than some small nations is an exciting idea that has always filled me with wonder and glee, ever since I was a child. Dota 2 (and most other e-sports) cut out this possibility with their invitational attitudes. A tournament that is called ‘The International’ really ought to be open to every team in existence in one way or another.
But it isn’t just the organizers who are doing it wrong. The level of maturity from some of the players can be shocking. If you’ve ever read or watched an interview with a sports star then you’ll be familiar with this classic bit of monologue that I am now about to recite to you.
‘I remember when I was just a kid playing [insert sport here] on the streets. Every Saturday, my Dad used to take me to see [insert team here] play their home games. I have loved [insert sport here] for as long as I can remember.’
It might seem like a tired old monologue from a guy who probably has more muscles than brain cells but it is undeniably evident of a true passion for something close to a person’s heart. It is a description of the way I and many of my friends feel about computer games. We grew up with them. We learned to read by playing them. We began to understand complex emotions by making our way through twisting storylines with deep, complex characters.
But when you look online for news about pro gamers, we are bombarded with a very different set of stories. Perhaps we can chalk this up to the generally young age of pro players and the anonymity of sitting behind your keyboard, thousands of miles away from your opponent. But the truth is that players are being banned for ‘extremely toxic behaviour’ and anti-Semitism. Players are committing suicide because their team’s manager has stolen all of their money and left the country. Players are being fired because they spoke out against the networks that broadcast their matches. Where is the passion? Where is the respect? We are a community and these people are representing us, so why isn’t anyone concerned about this?
At the end of an article you’re supposed to summarize your points. I’m not going to do that because we are still at the beginning of a journey right now. Instead I’ll leave you all with this fresh thought. In ten years’ time, professional gaming will be a multi-million dollar industry. By the time I’m lying on my death bed, it will most likely be considered a legitimate sport by most of the developed World. But it is how we, the online games community, choose to behave and act right now that will shape the nature of our hobby in years to come. We have to make the choice to keep games in the hands of the gamers. Football used to be a sport organized by the fans and played by the fans until someone decided to start paying players millions and millions just to show up to the training ground. We all know how that story panned out…