eSports Legitimacy and Blizzard's Heroes of the Dorm

[Mezahmay]

I was watching a stream of Blizzard's Pax East Panel for the new Hearthstone Adventure (Blackrock Mountain hype!) and along the way they also had announcements for Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, etc. One of their announcements regarding HotS and eSports was an event they are launching called Heroes of the Dorm: a HotS eSports competition pitting teams against each other for the opportunity to win... free tuition to a college of their choosing!

My reaction to this was lukewarm at best. It's a seemingly high production event intended to better introduce Heroes to a competitive MOBA environment already approaching saturation if not supersaturation and the ultimate prize is going to college? Not a giant prize pool? So these competitors can go and "get a real job" or some shit? It strikes me as a self-defeating proposition.

I would like your thoughts on this matter my fellow Escapists. I am curious to hear from anyone who is more familiar with eSports than I am.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I still don't think Heroes of the Storm is a good enough game to warrant a push for an eSports league, no matter how they go about doing it.

But League of Legends is doing the same thing with their collegiate leagues; college teams get scholarships if they're good enough. And I think that this is a good thing, and here's why: what kind of company would hire someone who spent the best years of his/her life playing video games for a living? You could maybe use your eSports experience to land a job as a game designer, but that's basically it. eSports will only pay the bills for so long, and players burn out within a decade; once that's done, there's little they can do besides stream, and most players won't make enough money to support themselves doing that.

Getting a college degree before playing professional League or other games would make you that much more likely to land a job once you can't keep up with the younger talent anymore.

 

[Mezahmay]

snip

Ah. I did not realize that this was already a thing. And those are all valid points I had not really considered. I always figured the winnings would eventually go toward future education or investments, but having some set allotted specifically for education is not that bad a thing. Thank you very much for the added perspective.

 

[Saetha]

Can't really complain about added alternatives to paying off college debt. The more avenues people have for that, the better. Besides, it's nice to see people getting full rides for being talented at useless shit that isn't sports.

So, no complaining from me. I knew a kid in highschool who was great at League of Legends but wanted to be a doctor. He would've loved it if his hobby managed to score him an education. I imagine there are many others who feel the same.