The words of the title describe some of the most active identities in the cyber universe! They come from all parts of the planet (as long as there is internet) and are between 10 to 30 years old (mostly…). All these identities together, in recent years, have been actively involved in the field of “eSports”. That is, they engage in competitive gaming at amateur, professional, and championship levels.
Electronic sports are connected to various kinds of video games that are played by at least two opposing players (or teams of players). Some of these genres, with the corresponding most popular titles in each category, are as follows:
– RTS: real-time strategy games (StarCraft II)
– FPS: first-person shooter virtual battles (Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty)
– MOBAs: multiplayer online battle arenas (League of Legends, Dota 2)
– CCG: online collectible card games (Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Pokemon TCG online)
Professionalism is an extra dimension that eSports have added to gaming. It involves the acknowledgment that a game can be played simply or played better; or, even more so, played in the most optimal way. There are the best (optimal) choices one can make based on the game’s algorithms and the most efficient moves. To improve at gaming, practice is required. Such an approach can involve handling any kind of electronic interface. Even typing a text is a process in which accuracy and speed are considered serious advantages. Typing as a skill is rated based on words per minute (WPM) and number of errors per number of words. A typing champion should type at speeds achievable by few people (over 200 WPM) and have spent countless hours at the keyboard.
In gaming, to “excel” means to study all aspects of the game thoroughly and to train systematically in its mechanics with the purpose of surpassing the performances of other players. The game automatically loses its “innocence” and acquires the hardness and discipline of professionalism. It is not simply a casual leisure activity in the era of computers and consoles. Gaming has risen not to “track” but to level…
sports for modern culture
Video games1 can rightfully be called eSports in an era where electronic machines and all related technologies are the dominant part of life. Skilled handling of computer systems is considered a great virtue both in leisure time and in many forms of work. Children handle electronic devices from a very young age. The virtual becomes as self-evident as the real. Within such a framework, gaming, the most intensive (usually) activity centered around electronic machines and algorithms, is absolutely reasonable to be declared a sport.
The champions (cyberathletes) in the gamers’ communities enjoy equivalent fame and glory to that of footballers. The most skilled gamers have substantial earnings from the salaries offered by various teams to players and from championship prizes. In 2015, at the League of Legends world championship (by Riot Games), the winning team (SK Telecom) received a prize of 1 million dollars. The largest total prize amount recorded to date in the history of eSports was 20 million dollars at the international Dota 2 championship (by Valve). In their most popular versions, eSports include glamour, money, and a star system, much like the traditional sports of the 20th century.
Electronic sports are addressed to an exceptionally large audience, comparable in size in recent years to that of traditional sports. More than 71 million people watched competitive video games in 2014. At the same time, large companies, such as Intel and Coca-Cola, attempt (through advertising and sponsorships) to connect with a large portion of young people (mainly men) aged 18 to 34, through competitive gaming.2
The history of video games has thus reached a point of maturity. Gamers have proven not to be what some—rather backwards—people used to think they were: the “marginal” figures lurking in the depths of dark internet cafés. Being a gamer means you can magically handle machines at the tips of your fingers, that you can have sharpened perception even when a large volume of information passes in front of you, that you can move effortlessly and gracefully through the expanding virtual world, and that you belong to the large international community of gamers, which means you share common interests with real friends or online “friends.”
eSports have also rightfully earned their title as sports, because just like all championship sports, electronic sports also involve match-fixing and doping (performance-enhancing drugs). The fact should be expected, considering millions play. It is also logical that the human body can hardly manage without “aids” the overexertion involved in a competitive game with a complex system, which requires managing a plethora of information per minute, especially when victory is the ultimate goal. We are not referring to energy drinks, which are standard in eSports anyway, but to a series of stimulants and antidepressant drugs with which players “gear up” during matches and training sessions.
Bjoern Franzen, a former consultant in the field of eSports, gives a clearer picture of the situation in an article titled “Doping in eSports – The almost invisible elephant in the room”.3 We translate some short excerpts from his extensive article:
I love eSports. We try to promote them as a mass sport, where everyone is on equal footing and hard training, perseverance and a bit of divine talent decide whether you will have a chance to make a living [..]
But the illusion of the sporting spirit and competitive equality is just a perfect showcase. The reality is somewhat different. [..]
While in 2003 players were cutting Teflon adhesive sheets and using silicone spray on mouse pads to gain even a minimal advantage over their opponents in the first-person shooter Counter-Strike, in 2014 it is considered natural for League of Legends players to take three different kinds of smart drugs before the tournament or to endure extending their training sessions for a few extra hours with full clarity.
Neuroenhancement for cyber-athletes in electronic sports is one of the best-kept secrets of the eSports Industry.4
Bjoern Franzen closes his article with a reference to who and how they benefit from the situation (“Who profits from this”). In his list he includes the players themselves, the teams, the tournament organizers5 and finally those who control the smart drugs market.
the beginning and official recognition of cyber-sports
Competitive gaming made its appearance as early as the era when gaming consoles became popular. The first major video game competition, the national Space Invaders championship, was organized by Atari in the US in 1980, aiming to promote the release of Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 console. A decade later, Nintendo organized the Nintendo World Championship, in which contestants had to achieve the highest score (high-score) in the games Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer and Tetris, with a time limit of 6 minutes and 21 seconds.
Red Annihilation, a tournament of the popular first-person shooter Quake, organized in the US in 1997 by Microsoft, was one of the first major eSports events, with 2000 participants and one of the first major player-versus-player competitions rather than for high-score. Following the success of Red Annihilation, the Cyberathletes Professional League (CPL) was created in the US, aiming at the professional organization of video game tournaments.
A milestone in the history of eSports and PC games in general was the release of StarCraft in 1998. The highly successful real-time strategy game, set in a military science fiction universe, became extremely popular in South Korea, giving a boost to the professional gaming scene. One of the reasons StarCraft became so massively popular was its ability to be played online. Thus, players across the country could face each other over the internet. In South Korea, teams began to form, sponsored by major technology companies (such as Samsung and SK Telecom), competing in matches that were even broadcast on television. As a result, in 2000, the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) was established in South Korea following approval by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, aiming to make eSports an official athletic organization, just like other sports. KeSPA is one of the largest organizations globally in eSports and one of the main reasons why this activity is so widespread in South Korea.
Subsequently, eSports gained popularity across larger parts of the planet, especially in regions where the internet developed and expanded. Internet technologies with increasingly higher speeds and the advancement of computer systems played a central role in establishing online multiplayer gaming.
MOBAs or otherwise ARTS (action real-time strategy) are now the most widespread version of eSports and perhaps video games in general. These are real-time strategy games in which each player controls only one character from one of the two opposing teams. The origin of MOBAs in the form they have today lies in a custom map of StarCraft created by the player Aeon64. The map, named Aeon of Strife, allowed players to control a powerful unit instead of an entire army. In Warcraft III, the player Eul recreated the StarCraft’s Aeon of Strife using the map editor included in the game. In this new map, the objective was to destroy the opponent’s infrastructure while protecting your own. Eul named the map Defense of the Ancients. And this was the beginning of the well-known D.O.T.A. which later, as a custom mod of Warcraft, evolved with many additional elements added by the gamers themselves. A tremendously growing community was created around this new genre. Various games emerged inspired by DOTA, amid fierce competition among major companies in the gaming industry to acquire the DOTA trademark. One of these games was the most dominant of its kind: League of Legends (LoL), released in 2009 by Riot Games.
In 2013, the US government recognized LoL pro gamers as (regular) athletes and now issues visas to players from other countries, allowing them to live and work in the US as professional athletes.
the invention of passive gaming
Being a gamer means playing games. However, regarding eSports, you may be involved in gaming without necessarily playing games. Cyber sports have created their own audience over the past few years. Watching electronic “matches” is mainly done through streaming platforms, which have become established partly due to the development of eSports themselves. Apart from YouTube, Twitch.tv6 is exceptionally popular and focused on gaming. It launched in 2011 and by 2014 was considered the fourth-largest source of internet traffic in the US. On Twitch, gamers (and not only) appear daily in live streaming. While playing their favorite game, fans from all over the world watch their live broadcast. Viewers can even, if they wish, deposit whatever they like into the streamers’ bank accounts. In 2014, Twitch was purchased by Amazon, and in 2015 the company announced that streamers with their own channels exceeded 1.5 million, while visitors reached 100 million per month.
We can therefore say with certainty that a new type of gaming audience has now been created, which is not necessarily composed of gamers, but rather viewers of other gamers. This is a characteristic development because, before the widespread adoption of eSports, gaming was an activity for individuals and not something that many non-players watched.
We assume that the reason this dual version of gaming (gamers “live” and their viewers) has emerged is, firstly, the development of internet technologies through which live streaming from ordinary users is possible… There is a lot of people who have the desire to “broadcast live” their activities on the internet. Also, as it seems, there is a lot of people who prefer to watch others who are at home playing their favorite game. A second reason, which has certainly contributed significantly to making the viewing of gaming a popular habit, is the complexity of eSports and more specifically, the “professionalism” required for a really good game. In order to be able to play quite well, one will need to study the game of other gamers who, as they stream, often give good advice and explain their strategy. Many “good player” streamers, in this way, have the ability to earn several to many dollars per hour – depending on how popular they are – from subscriptions or donations given during the broadcast by the fans who follow them and sometimes from sponsors.
To facilitate the viewing of eSports, the profession of game commentator (shoutcaster) has also been created, just like in other sports! Shoutcasters usually commentate on major/official matches or some “good games.” Below, we translate an excerpt from the highlights of the semifinal of the 2015 League of Legends world championship, which took place in various European cities. This particular match took place in Brussels, and the rival teams were Koo Tigers (South Korea) and Fnatic (Europe – they played at home, if “at home” can be said in the cyber world…). Imagine the commentary shouted out loud, with exactly the same theatrical intensity as the commentary of a football match…
Rekkles is on defense, Febiven has no mana at all, and Smeb, riding into his own darkness, will take another inhibitor* from Fnatic.
11,000 gold lead!! – it will grow EVEN more as the minions gather – The 2nd inhibitor will fall!!Two superminion waves give Koo a huge advantage to take the 3rd inhibitor or the game!
GorillA found Rekkles and Smeb wants more!
Rekkles eats fear and heads toward the NEXUS*.
Febiven falls back! – waiting for the Exhaust [spell] attack before he himself casts the Shockwave.
Huni wants to try to clear, but the Dragon’s Wrath will crush his team.
It’s a DOUBLE KILL for Fnatic – they’re holding the defense well but it’s not enough, it’s too late and I DON’T think it will count!Fnatic at their base! They’re waiting for their END!
Koo Tigers have KILLED Huni!
Four members of Fnatic remain – trying to block the wave, but the Dragon’s Wrath BLASTS THEM INTO THE AIR
– The Shockwave can’t even be completed!
And Koo Tigers will get the ACE**, they’ll take the BASE!
And they’ll earn a chance at the Summoner’s Cup, in Berlin, against SK Telecom!*important buildings-infrastructure
**final blow: killing the last member of the opposing team
Regarding the impact that the championship had, we translate some sentences from the article of the Forbes magazine titled “Monstrous viewership numbers show that ‘League of Legends’ is still the king of eSports”:
The most notable statistics include the fact that at one point, 14 million viewers were simultaneously watching the final match between SKT and the Koo Tigers in Berlin, an increase from 11 million in 2014. Overall, there were 36 million different viewers in the finals [..]
The game has been the most popular on earth for the past few years [..]. The last thing we learned was that the game had 27 million daily players and 67 million monthly players. [This makes LoL] by far the largest game in the world.
the “link of legends”
LOL might remind you of the old internet exclamation/acronym (Laughing Out Loud), but if you think League of Legends (LoL) is some kind of joke, you’re making a very serious mistake! It’s the game in which the most hours of global gaming have been recorded7 and gamers (most of the time) take very seriously the strategies they should follow in the game. The company that develops it (Riot Games) has over a thousand employees and its revenues in 2015 reached 1.6 billion dollars, even though the game is free-to-play.
Free-to-play (F2P) games provide players with access to a significant portion of their content for free. In the most popular versions of F2P, players have access to all the game’s features without paying, but they can have access to additional optional – according to the game’s rules – content. F2P revenues are based on microtransactions for purchasing virtual goods within the game itself, which generally have a low cost (from one to several dollars). This is a business model that has flourished in recent years in the online world for purchasing applications or virtual goods. The purchase (cosmetic or optional) of micro-items within video games or other electronic applications has often proven to be a more profitable model than subscription services or the direct purchase of electronic products.
For example in League, players can unlock new champions the more they play, without having to pay. For those in a hurry, however, there is the option to pay to buy new champions faster. The main virtual product that is available only for purchase is the champions’ alternative outfits (skins): if you like a certain champion you can buy them a new skin and “dress” them in a new form (not the default one). Therefore, the issue is mainly aesthetic, it is not something necessary regarding the game itself and it is not something that will determine victory.
Such an approach allows video games like League to build a large community around them. The engagement of gamers with their favorite game is intense, regardless of how much one wants or can afford to spend. Also, it’s a game that you can easily play, but it’s difficult to play well. Thus, many people can get involved in it just to watch it, initially… And precisely because continuing becomes increasingly difficult, complex, and deep, they will persist, train, and strive to improve, taking advice from the community and participating as part of it.
The League community8 actively engages in writing guides that help other players develop better strategies. Community members participate in forums where discussions take place on game-related topics, such as terminology, best practices, player behavior in the game and in-game chats, and many other subjects. Gamers with artistic skills create constructions or designs (from digital to canvas) inspired by the themes and heroes of League (fan art). Additionally, cosplay is widespread in the community, meaning fans dressing up as game characters, which often includes making the costumes themselves. Cosplayers can be amateurs, but also professionals who are hired, for example, by tournament organizers.
All this investment of fans in their free time with their creativity and imagination adds significant value to the product itself of Riot. And it is certain that esports would be absolutely nothing without the extended community that develops around them. For gamers, esports are like engaging in any sport, but together with other gamers who love the same thing. Through sports, the community connects, there is a very deep and complex topic that you can discuss with others who belong to the same community, if you meet at a gamer gathering (convention), in a forum or in a chat.
Beyond the popularity that a large community brings to a video game, the fact that so many people are engaged with and playing the game provides the development company with numerous and valuable insights that help improve the product itself. The free-to-play model is undoubtedly an extremely successful marketing tactic, both for building a game’s community and maximizing profit. As for the fans’ activity itself, we wouldn’t call it work, but rather a dimension of actively subsuming free time into capital. So much creativity and imagination (!) makes you think wistfully… why must it revolve around a consumer product? Yes, we agree! It’s not just a product… it’s a unique form of engagement. And why should all this creativity be the main factor allowing Riot (and others in the industry) to earn millions?
Therefore, no matter how much the community, through its intense online activities, feels that the game belongs to it, and no matter how much Riot, on its part, does everything (exploiting the most moving marketing techniques) to convince the community that the game is theirs, the “community” that is perceived through the identity of the gamer-consumer becomes profitable for the company in a similar way that the identity of the football fan-supporter functions in a profitable way for a football team. One of Riot’s basic marketing strategies is to cultivate a sense of community among fans. And one of the methods it follows is to pay the most prominent members of the community itself (such as good streamers and youtubers). It is also the only eSports company that gives regular salaries to professional players.
life in the battlefield
Most likely you will have someone of your own who will deal with LoL. However, if you have not yet figured out how the game is played, we will give you the general picture.
In LoL, players are called summoners (in the Greek translation of the game). Summoners can choose a champion (hero or heroine) from the 123 currently available in each game. Champions have a series of statistics and properties that concern their action on the battlefield and are accompanied by an extensive narrative concerning the character’s story. Additional heroes are gradually added to the game.
In each match, the team has 5 players. You can invite your friends through the game if you want to play on the same team, or you can join a team where the game’s automatic mechanism will place you, according to the level you have reached. Players have different roles in the battle (Toplaner, Jungler, Midlaner, AD Carry and Support), meaning they play in different positions where they must follow the appropriate strategy. At the beginning of the game, you will need to direct your champion to the position where they should play in the first part of the game. Depending on the role you choose to play, you should therefore also choose a corresponding champion who is good in that particular position. You should know this or learn it from experience.
The map has three lanes: middle, top, and bottom. These are the roads that connect the two bases, where most of the battles take place. As the game progresses, you should move your champion to other lanes to help your teammates. Between the lanes, there is the jungle, which is filled with neutral monsters that do not attack any specific team. However, if a team kills a neutral monster, they can gain gold. Heroes also earn gold by destroying enemy structures or killing their minions. With gold, players can buy items during the game that add extra powers and abilities. Specific items or combinations of items give advantages to certain champions and strategies, so players must make the right choices as the game runs in real time. To win the game, a team must destroy the enemy team’s structures and defensive fortifications and ultimately destroy the enemy’s base (nexus), while at the same time protecting their own structures. These are the basics, but the additional details are countless.
Depending on how well a player (summoner) has played in a game, the game’s algorithms rate them through a fairly complex scoring system, with corresponding points (Influence Points and Experience). Although the game is played in teams, the scoring is individual. Therefore, a poor performance can affect the scores of the other players as well, which of course leads to confrontations and frustrations that manifest in the chat during the match. Thus, the most aggressive behavior in in-game conversations can come from one’s own team rather than from opponents. When someone isn’t playing well, the rest of the team feels they’re wasting their time and start yelling. This causes anxiety mainly in new players, but keeps veteran players focused on not making mistakes. The solution one usually resorts to is muting their team, so that comments don’t appear, and continuing to play. If they can’t handle it and leave the game, this fact is recorded in their profile. As a result, they will lose League points and if it repeats multiple times, they will be banned from the game. This is an experience with strong elements of militarism.
Once a player (summoner) reaches level 30, they can then play ranked games through which they can climb the game’s ranking. Through an also complex scoring system (League Points and a hidden rating called Matchmaking Rating) players are ranked on a scale with seven tiers. The final tier (challenger) is where professional players are found and is the stage one should reach in order to be scouted by an official team. The game also applies a kind of “punishment” for players who belong to relatively high levels and fail to play ranked games for more than 28 days. Depending on the tier they are in, they gradually lose league points and drop in rank. You will be greatly impressed by how much online literature and number of videos will appear if you search for the phrase “ranked anxiety”. The article titles resemble “How to overcome ranked anxiety”, “I can’t play ranked without getting anxious.”, “How to deal with anxiety in LoL”. Amateur gamer psychologists or often paid by riot, provide psychological support to players for ranked games!! It reminds something like “How to overcome job interview anxiety”, “5 tips to impress at a meeting”…
rigorous education in technique
Already from the above brief description of the game system, it becomes clear that exceptional specialization of players is required in order to be able to play an eSport. Gamers must first of all be trained in all keyboard and mouse operations, so that they can perform the necessary moves within the game skillfully and with the necessary automation. The real-time development of the game, with all the other players relying on your moves or waiting for your mistake if they are opponents, does not allow second thoughts. Just as when you drive a car on a central road, so too in the game, you must be able to make the expected moves by following the rules and the flow of the virtual battle in an almost instinctive way.
Beyond the mechanics, you should have the necessary knowledge about the champions, their abilities, items, the strategy each position should follow, the map’s structures, spells, runes and summoner abilities, the game’s terminology and abbreviations so you can communicate with the other players and much more. Additionally, since the game is competitive, it’s not enough to only know what you’re interested in playing, but also the information needed to deal with the opposing team.9
On the internet there are several discussions by gamers about the tedious process of learning League of Legends and references to the game’s difficult and gradual learning curve. However, since gaming is also esports, professionalism is accepted and rather desired by players. Many guides and tips have been written that emphasize to the rest of the cyber-athletes in the community what they should pay attention to in order to improve. Superior players often explain in a strict tone to the more novice players (noobies) how they should play and the efforts they should make to improve.
A game is therefore capable of placing players in their chairs for hours, in order to learn its rules and be trained in its system. The body obeys in front of the screen, thought strictly follows the rules of the game. The machine trains players to obey its algorithmic operation and unconsciously internalize the control it exercises over them. Even if this control is adapted to their own personal choices.
You may not feel like learning mathematics, but you probably know the statistics of your heroes and their chances of success against others in a battle. You may not be into Latin, but you’ll easily use the game’s terminology in chats and forums or comfortably speak a special language with your friends that seems equally incomprehensible. Compared to the discipline of the traditional education system and the useless knowledge we accumulate while sitting at our desks, this might even seem liberating. But in several aspects, this new form of education through video games doesn’t oppose traditional learning processes; it takes them a level further and enhances them. Education through discipline in systems of machines and algorithms cannot free thought from predetermined molds. It is certainly capable, however, of making players internalize practices of automated thinking, almost as if it were their second nature. Thought will seek the optimal version, the most efficient way. Discipline to specific norms and the psychosomatic violence of the traditional educational system are not abolished, but as they are adapted into a game package, they seem to fit better with the demands of the modern labor market.
In contrast to other sports, eSports can train gamers for any job that requires intensity and management of complex information or division of work into individual tasks that must be completed quickly and accurately. eSports players practice the skill of handling under pressure, managing complex situations with lots of information simultaneously and in real time. The scoring and ranking process of eSports resembles modern (originating from Silicon Valley) managerial performance measurement tools used by businesses as a measure of efficient exploitation of labor. (If, however, you thought of writing gaming hours in your resume, the response you will likely find in Greece would probably be meager. What can one say! Provincialism…)
For most people, eSports may simply remain games, but one thing is certain: an entire generation is being educated through the competitive form and professional dimension of gaming, in the seriousness one must show towards machines and in the technical way of thinking. There are the best and the worst. The result is indisputable: algorithms are impartial judges and will give you the position you deserve in the global ranking. It is everyone’s job to make the necessary sacrifices and work hard to be recognized within this universally meritocratic performance measurement system. Quantification, optimization, and machine-controlled performance are becoming absolutely accepted values through… the pleasure of playing! Could this fact perhaps lead—outside the gaming context—to corresponding rejections as well?
Shelley Dee
cyborg #07 – 10/2016
- As for the development of algorithmic gamification, see: “Do androids play electric games?” (Cyborg #3). ↩︎
- Based on statistics and data published by the American company SuperData, which provides market intelligence services to the gaming industry, analyzing the online gaming market. ↩︎
- http://bjoernfranzen.com/blog/doping-in-esports-the-almost-invisible-elephant-in-the-room ↩︎
- The term “neuroenhancement” refers to the improvement of perceptual, emotional and motivational functions of healthy subjects, through the use of drugs, called pharmaceutical neuroenhancers or otherwise “smart drugs”. ↩︎
- Specifically, it states: “Valve, MLG, ESL, Riot Games, Dreamhack, Blizzard don’t want games. They want spectacles. Catastrophic, nerve-wracking endless hours of the Top Five Best Games that drive the audience crazy are the best thing that can happen to them.” ↩︎
- The Twitch website took its name from the term “Twitch gameplay” which refers to a player’s reflexive movement or reaction to the stimuli of a video game. “Twitch” mainly describes the fast reaction time of players in action games that require reflexes. ↩︎
In statistics published by Riot Games for LoL, it states that the gamers who play daily come from 145 countries, are 85% between the ages of 16 and 30, and 90% of the players are male. The game’s predominant appeal to a male audience is evident. The design of the female characters: the female champions have an aesthetic based on male stereotypes of the female body, in the mythic version of the game. This fact is commented on negatively by gamers even in the LoL forums themselves.
↩︎- http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/community/ ↩︎
- For example, in LoL ranked games each team selects at the beginning of the match three champions they want to ban from the opposing team’s choices, so that those which are quite powerful against their own are not available. ↩︎