E-Sports
Essay Preview: E-Sports
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We live in constant violence. It seems like every year theres a domestic event highlighted by a bloody rampage by crazed individuals armed with weapons that are meant for such frenzies. The most recent that are still in peoples minds would be the Washington Sniper and the Columbine High School shootings. While it may be true that psychologically troubled individuals planned out and executed both events, later investigations pointed out one hauntingly similar coincidence. The killers practiced on simulated violence that comes with video games (
One of the ideas that hasnt taken hold in the United States would be the idea of Electronic Sports or Professional Gaming (commonly known as E-Sports). The rest of the world, namely Europe and Asia, respects and accepts E-Sports, whereas the United States looks down on it. America tries to make attaining competitive games Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike:Source Halo, Warcraft 3 and others difficult for everybody. Europe and Asia on the other hand, have live media coverage at events broadcasted over national television. If a common middle-class mother in America mentions something about games, negative comments would follow suit. If the same case was to happen in Norway, then the responses would be neutral and would wind up with the mothers conversing about their sons/daughters placement in the last major event they were in. One of the primary reasons for the acceptance of E-Sports in Europe would be the way its viewed. Europeans view E-Sports as a “cultural artifact.” They also discovered that theres “more to games than violence” (
The culture found in competitive gaming is interesting and fulfilling. One of the more famous and heavily fabled leagues where the worlds most high-caliber teams duke it out would be the Cyberathlete Professional League. (
E-Sports is just like regular physical sports, with statistics being available for teams and players. Other players follow those statistics, such as the ones found at gotfrag.com religiously and discuss them, just how baseball fans discuss about Sammy Sosas home runs. Team rankings such as the ones found at gotfrag.com are respected as much as an NCAA basketball teams seed ranking. Its especially serious in Europe and Asia where sometimes “being a professional gamer earns you thousands a month, even if you are not the top of the crop”. (taste) In fact, professional gaming in Europe and Asia can be a full-time job, and if a person is good enough, they can live off of all the prize money. In fact, an American named Jonathon Wendel has made over $100K in one year of professional gaming. (Millington) And of course, there is always the other players that look up to such stars as role models. In fact, rumors are that China, the host of Summer Olympics in 2008, may very well be including computer games in the lineup with the other “traditional” sports (taste).
If China does include a battery of computer games for the 2008 Olympics, then that would probably be the point where computer gaming becomes mainstream (Millington), including in the U.S. If the general population of the United States doesnt see the worldwide acceptance of E-Sports as “real competition,” then it probably never will in the United States.
But computer games arent the only things that the American population isnt aware of. The massacre at Columbine could have been avoided. It didnt have