The Rise of Competitive Gaming & E-Sports

[music playing] T.L.

TAYLOR: E-sports is a way of signaling all of those things we find in traditional sports, and the shared community of passionate gamers that comes around that.

DAMIEN DAILIDENAS: The thing that I love about "Street Fighter," of course, is the competition.

I go to a tournament.

If I win, it's amazing.

Like, it's the best feeling in the world.

AJ MAZUR: As long as there are people playing video games, there are people ready to watch video games.

T.L.

TAYLOR: Competitive gaming has been present since the earliest days of arcade play.

People forming around favorite titles, sharing top scores, competing against each other.

When personal computers came on the scene and those became popular, people started going to LAN parties-- local area network parties-- to play and compete face to face.

When we get the Internet, of course, that changes everything.

Because people can now start competing with people they've never met before.

What happens then is that there's business people who are interested in seeing if they can also make some money off of that scene.

So coming in and starting more formal tournaments, formal organizations, that run year to year.

Despite having now been around for several decades, it's still in very early days.

It's still trying to figure out its economic models.

It's still sorting out the broadcast model.

It's still trying to figure out what spectatorship means, and how to bring more people into it.

So I think for me that's one of the really important stories of e-sports.

It's what does it mean to turn something that we mostly think of an object of leisure into something you're professionally passionate about and are dedicating lots of time, hard work and energy to.

AJ MAZUR: When it comes to e-sports right now, there are four major genres.

First off, you have your shooters-- "Counter-Strike," "Halo," "Call of Duty."

You have those.

Next up is the fighting games.

They've been around for the longest.

"Street Fighter," "Tekken," "BlazBlue," "Guilty Gear"-- things like that.

Then you have real-time strategy, which is really the basis of e-sports where it is today.

It started off with the original "StarCraft," now went over to "StarCraft II," "Warcraft II," "Command & Conquer"-- a lot of games in the genre.

And then it finally is MOBAs-- the multiplayer online battle arenas.

This is your "League of Legends," "Dota," "Dota 2," "Heroes of Newerth," "Smite."

Shooters and MOBAs are more the team-oriented games.

You have a group of guys-- three, four, five people, depending on the game.

And they really work on team coordination, teamwork, for some sort of goal.

For shooters, it's usually capturing bases of getting tons of kills.

For the MOBAs, it's go and destroy the enemy's base.

The real-time strategy games and the fighting games are more of the one v one situations.

RTS games, you have command of little armies.

You try to destroy your enemy's base, just one v one.

Same thing with the fighters.

You have a health bar.

You goal?

Just get that thing to zero.

I think a lot of the misconceptions about e-sports carried over from misconceptions about video games-- how it's a waste of time.

When in reality, you can make quite a bit of money off of this.

And in some parts of the world, it can really open huge career paths for you.

T.L.

TAYLOR: Right now there are hundreds of e-sports tournaments every year worldwide.

And they're organized in a range of ways.

There are some very polished, professional leagues.

There are also game developers who run events themselves, all the way down to volunteer organizations who are doing small, local tournaments in their communities.

So there's a pretty broad spectrum.

At tournaments, spectators energize in the same way they do at traditional sporting events.

When I talk to e-sports fans, they often compare their e-sports fandom to their fandom of a traditional sport, whether it's soccer, or basketball.

So it means we've got to figure out how to bring all these other people into what is essentially a one-to-one space.

And so over the years, there have been lots of different ways of doing this.

Broadcast modules in games-- putting a big screen up in a room so that people can all sort of watch one player's perspective.

One of the most interesting things that's happened in the last couple years is the growth of live streaming, where people are broadcasting tournaments, matches, or even practice time, over the Internet onto channels that lots of people can spectate at once.

So it's a big challenge-- how to let tens of thousands of people get into that space of digital play, the digital playing field.

DAMIEN DAILIDENAS: I was raised on a small island in the Bronx.

There was this local pizza place that got "Street Fighter I."

So I got into that with my friends.

It was very addicting.

And then "Street Fighter II" eventually came along.

And that was huge.

That, like, took the world by storm.

So that was, of course, the game that got me hooked.

And I was the best in my little group of friends.

So one thing led to another.

I found a local tournament that was in Philadelphia.

This was a really small tournament.

There was only about eight people.

I was just really fascinated that there were tournaments for this game that I loved.

So we played.

And you know, I got destroyed.

But it was a real eye opener to see how differently the game was played from when I thought I was good.

The metagame, and the strategy involved, was, like, way different.

So I was getting beat my characters that were unheard of getting beat by back when I was younger.

When I first started, I was going to almost every major of the year.

I'd fly at least six or seven times a year.

I was really hungry to test my skills and climb the mountain.

When you're at home, playing on the couch or with your friends, you're totally comfortable with anybody.

That's when a lot of people can really play their best.

But when you go to a tournament, there's this new element that you really have to get used to.

And you only do that by going to more tournaments.

And that's the element of hundreds of thousands of people that you don't know watching you play and judging your every move.

The community now is extremely friendly.

Like 99% of the people that go to tournaments are there for the party.

So yeah.

It's a very close-knit community in that regard.

I've kind of reached the top of the mountain in America.

So I'm going to make a big trip to Japan this year.

That's where all the best players are.

My goal now is to go there and be able to beat them consistently.

T.L.

TAYLOR: The e-sports community needs to really confront in a serious way, and grapple with, real problems if it wants to continue growing and bringing new people in.

It is male-dominated right now.

And sexism is something that the scene and the community struggle with.

There are structural problems that keep women out.

I think that community has tended to support itself and turn inward, kind of take pride in their own outsider status.

And I think one of the things that's happening now is computer gaming has really just become a mainstream leisure activity.

And so the e-sports community is having to transition into what it means from going from geek subculture to something actually hundreds of thousands of people may be participating in.

And I think the people who are very interested in growing e-sports tend to be really dedicated and passionate about improving e-sports competitions.

I think if the community can sort out and get through this growing pain of being a more inclusive space, it has an interesting future ahead.

DAMIEN DAILIDENAS: I have a small group of dedicated friends.

We meet about once a week.

And we play.

You have to be real analytical in picking apart why you're losing.

T.L.

TAYLOR: Right now the model is around advertising as a predominant form of support.

It's one of the most fragile parts of the scene in many ways.

Because it's still trying to find the best way to make it sustainable.

AJ MAZUR: Every progressive year has been the biggest year for e-sports.

Viewership keeps going up.

The number of pros keeps going up.

Prize money keeps going up.

It's a huge growing industry.

[music playing]