From 20 school districts to 300+ Texas has 1227 school districts
I don’t know whether the benefits of esports outweighs the negatives – mostly because I don’t know hardly anything about them – but I appreciate the way the gamers have started a ground-up movement almost independently of the people in charge of their recreational opportunities. Even though I can’t personally wrap my head around the entertainment value of watching others play esports, it’s still something that vaguely reinforces my fairly high opinion of the newest generations.
Up The Man! Tell those old people to properly fuck off.
I’ve been playing video games for nearly 40 years now, going back to my family’s Atari. I grew up with them. I also don’t get watching people play games. Even really good people who excel at games. Usually the better someone is at gaming, the faster they play and the harder it is to understand what’s happening.
I think, for me at least, it’s the presentation. What esports need to do (and maybe this is happening but I haven’t seen it) is replicate what real sports do. By that I mean, when I’m watching football or baseball or basketball or soccer or whatever, I’m watching from cameras suspended in the air showing me the action. I’m seeing replays from multiple angles. When I’ve seen esports I’m just seeing what the player/players see; a first person or over-the-shoulder game perspective. That’s not interesting to me. I couldn’t watch a football game if the cameras were on players’ helmets. I couldn’t tell what’s happening.
If they could somehow have virtual sky cams operated by people who knew what action to follow and how to do it, then that might make a big difference.
I still also have to get over the fact that these are people doing something I could do or anyone could do. Maybe they’re better than me at it, well I can pretty much guarantee they’re better, but it’s still not impressive. I could at least do it. I couldn’t do professional sports. It takes an exceptional person to even remotely compete. That’s probably why bowling isn’t fun for me to watch; I can bowl and it’s not that hard, even if I can’t get a score like the people on TV, it’s still not something that impresses me.
Schools must actually love esports since there is almost zero chance of an injury.
You’ve never participated in marathon gaming before, I’m guessing.
I guess it’s not really any different than watching other people playing a traditional physical game like baseball or football.
I had a whole long post typed up about being confused why people would rather watch than play. Then I read the article :smack: This is about people playing. I guess I have always assumed “eSports” means pro, with 6 people playing and 2 million watching, which makes no sense to me.
But high School kids trying out to make the Fortnight team, then playing other schools, with a couple dozen friends watching, just like wrestling or basketball, is a different situation that does seem pretty cool to this [sub]mumblejealousmumble[/sub] old gamer.
I’d guess that eSports covers any competitive organized league. So the big Asian events qualify but so does a regional high school thing where they all play out which school’s team is best at Overwatch.
I don’t find eSports especially interesting despite playing games (but don’t begrudge those who do) but I also play tabletop RPGs and don’t find the popular streams of those (Critical Role, etc) interesting either. I guess I’m just more of a doer than a watcher when it comes to my hobbies.
I think it is more like watching golf. Lots of people play golf and like to watch the best of the best. Lots of people play video games and like to watch the best of the best.
Yeah, that was kind of a dumb thing for me to say. I like watching a particular sport, too.
Still, what I like best is how it is developing largely outside of the regimens of adult organization. It seems like it’s a pretty grass roots movement.
I don’t get the appeal of watching other people play video games, but I also accept that I’ve aged out of their target demographic so it’s not for me anyway. My kids are as happy watching gamers streaming on Twitch as they are playing the game themselves, I know I’m just too old for that.
I’m not at all shocked by this development; I’ve been saying for some time now that esports are the next big market. Real football and basketball and other sports are likely to whither a bit, as funding has to be spread to newer, more popular activities.
I can tell you that some games are no different than watching the real thing (except that sometimes the real thing doesn’t exist).
Rocket League is basically 3v3 soccer played with cars. the cars have bumper plates on the bottom so they can “jump” and nitrous packs so they can fly once they are in the air (that’s the rocket part of the game).
The game is played on a huge field with walls and a ceiling that the cars can drive on.
Obviously that doesn’t exist in real life, but watching the game is like watching any other sport. There are floating drone cameras and every car has a camera inside. Sometimes the “director” cuts from one to another, but it’s not much different than watching soccer or hockey on TV.
The MOBA games are all essentially just sporting events, once you understand the rules and what’s going on.
We’re talking about a place where high school football is the official state religion. I don’t think that chance of injury enters into their thinking.
As for the perspective when watching, a lot of games have a “spectator mode”, where players can enter the game as spectators, and move the “camera” view around however they’d like (you can also record games so they can be viewed in spectator mode later). It’s not practical to have more than a few people watching live this way, but there’s no reason you couldn’t have a designated cameraman doing it for streaming to an audience, and afterwards you can distribute the game recording so anyone who has a copy of the game can do their own spectating.
I can see that. Sports like baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and tennis all involve one athlete or team competing directly against another. But while the players in golf are competing, they’re essentially doing it separately against the course rather than directly against the other players. So golf is probably the best comparison for esports.
At least based on my understanding of esports. Which I’ll concede is several decades out of date. Is Missile Command still big?
I misread Esports as Escorts. I wondered when Texas got so “liberal”
Most e-sports are directly competitive, not just players separately trying for high scores. They’re mostly, at some level, simulations of warfare (albeit sometimes highly stylized warfare), with offense, defense, and reaction to what one’s opponent is doing.
Then again, one might also argue that most physical sports are also highly stylized warfare simulations.
You can still get your tribalism on with any school sport. OUR team beat THEIR team. WE WIN! That’s part of the reason people enjoy watching a sport. Being your school, you have a connection to the players. (When it’s strangers, I don’t quite see it)
I’ve always been curious to see esports on games that have dozens of players on each team. I know most esports games are either solo or about a squad of 4-6 affaris, but I’d love to see a Battlefield tournament where each side has 32 experienced players.