Roland Li - Good luck have fun: the rise of eSports

Copyright 2016 by Roland Li

F IRST E DITION

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Li, Roland.

Title: Good luck have fun : the rise of eSports / by Roland Li.

Description: First Edition. | New York : Skyhorse Publishing, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016004243 (print) | LCCN 2016005862 (ebook) | ISBN 9781634506571 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781634506588 (ebook) | Subjects: LCSH: Video gamesCompetitions.

Classification: LCC GV1469.3 .L54 2016 (print) | LCC GV1469.3 (ebook) | DDC 794.8dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016004243

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Jacket photo by Jakob Wells is licensed under CC BY 2.0. View license at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the eSports community. You make this possible.

CONTENTS

Pre-Game

WHY VIDEO GAMES MATTER

On October 19, 1972, two dozen students gathered at Stanford Universitys Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to do battle among the stars. They piloted ships through a speck-filled void, shooting missiles and dancing against gravity in one of the worlds first video games, Spacewar. First prize was a years subscription to Rolling Stone magazine.

Spacewar was played on the Programmed Data Processor-1, an early computer that weighed 1,200 pounds and was limited mostly to academic centers. A group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created the game, which was primitive but joyful, sucking players in and creating a community.

Reliably, at any nighttime moment (i.e., nonbusiness hours) in North America, hundreds of computer technicians are effectively out of their bodies, locked in life-or-death space combat computer-projected onto cathode ray tube display screens, for hours at a time, ruining their eyes, numbing their fingers in frenzied mashing of control buttons, joyously slaying their friends and wasting their employers valuable computer time. Something basic is going on, Stewart Brand wrote in Rolling Stone .

Competition has always been a central part of video games. The first arcades measured skill with high scores. Top players could etch their names in three-letter combinations, showing off to subsequent players until they were knocked down. Spacewars source code was released for free, but as video games became a commercial enterprise, developers saw the potential of formal competition as a way of attracting more customers.

In 1980, Atari created the Space Invaders Championship, where thousands of players competed. The competitive show Starcade was broadcast on television the next year. In the 1990s, the Nintendo World Championships were held, where kids showed off their Super Mario skills.

Games became more complex, supporting more players and richer graphics and systems. The Internet heightened competition, spawning communities that formulated and dissected strategies across the globe.

Four decades later, competitive video gaming, also known as electronic sports or eSports, has become a global phenomenon. Millions of viewers watch competitions every month, and players train full time to compete for cash prizes that reach seven figures.

The professional gamers clicking furiously and staring intently at screens would be familiar sights to those students at Stanford four decades ago, even if their branded headphones and colorful team jerseys might seem strange.

Technologys penetration into virtually every aspect of our lives has made gaming ubiquitous. Video games are played around the world, from Stockholm to Seoul to San Francisco, between players connected almost instantly by the Internet. Streaming video competitions are a click away on a computer, tablet, or phone. Broadcast costs have plummeted thanks to investments and the tenacity of some key entrepreneurs. But the most critical factor in the success of eSports is the passion, if not outright obsession, of the players, tournament organizers, investors, game developers, and, above all, the fans. They made it possible, and their flaws and struggles have made eSports an imperfect phenomenon. No one got into eSports originally to get rich, but now they can.

Passion isnt always enough. The industry is littered with the digital fragments of teams, players, and organizations that no longer exist, with a legacy of unpaid salaries and defunct websites. Companies can live and die in days, teams shuffle rosters constantly, and players quit after poor results or when real life intrudes. Scandals like match fixing, unpaid prize money, and fraud abound. For all its growth, regulation is almost nonexistent. If the NBA and NFL are entering a fat and lucrative middle age, eSports is still the twenty-five-year-old who got a killer job but hasnt figured his life out yet.

The adversarial and interactive nature of video games makes them different than most other art forms, like film, television, music, and theater. The struggle against a computer or human opponent means that playing can become a craft. Many of the best games allow players to clearly differentiate themselves through skill, falling somewhere between the curated, individualized experience of traditional art and the competitive nature of sports. Games transport the player into an entirely new virtual place through sights and sounds. Its a new medium, and for some, a frightening glimpse at a future detached from reality: a waste of time.

Do video games matter? The question can be expanded. What value do athletes or actors or artists bring? Their contributions to society through competitions, movies, and artwork arent entirely tangible, yet many are beloved more than those who provide the food, shelter, and jobs that directly sustain people.

By evoking strong emotions, professional gamers and the games they play become worthy of attention. Fans vote with their money, but also their time.

Games have grown to be a cultural force and an economic powerhouse. The research firm Newzoo projects that global video game industry revenue will exceed $100 billion by 2017. And eSports is gaining a larger chunk of that investment every day, with Deloitte projecting eSports revenue of $500 million in 2016.

The late film critic Robert Ebert claimed that video games could never be art. But there is a beauty and aesthetic to a pro gamers movements, his or her reflexes, the coordination and sequencing of a team in harmony. Skill clearly differentiates good players from bad.

What makes a good player? First is mastery of mechanics, the physical control of play through mouse clicks and keyboard taps. In a shooting game, gun accuracy and player positioning are essential.