Some thoughts on E-sports

[Irick]

E-sports are a thing, at this point we can move on to other aspects of this conversation. I'd like to put forward a few problems and ideas about the nature of the new medium. The last few years have seen a meteoric rise in the popularity of e-sports, which we can attribute to the ease of entry and ease of access with streaming services popping up everywhere. This popularity has already prompted acceptance by virtue of acknowledgement by the U.S. government and even a few college scholarships.

So, this leads to a few questions about the nature of E-sports, especially as they start to intermingle with our established cultural systems. One of the unifying things about sports is their ease of entry. To play soccer/football, all you need is a ball. The rules are simple, understood by all of the players and the equipment is minimal. I do not think that it is unfair to say that today getting your hands on a smartphone or raspberry pi is nearly as simple as getting your hands on a ball and some cones. However, the recent push for ARM powered devices means that the easiest computing devices to get do not typically have the ability to run the current popular competitive games. This is an accessibility issue.

As they stand now, E-sports have their rules and regulations governed over by (typically) two or more entities. We have the entity holding a sporting event, who may be able to change some aspects of the game and the game publisher. This is contrasted by traditional sports, wherein there are regulations governed by sporting leagues and then the culturally accepted institution of each sport in general. The rules for any given sport can be tweaked, played with, and they exist outside of the context of the competition or any company. This raises two issues to me. The first is the relative immutability of game logic and the second is the ultimate dependency of E-sports on single points of failure (the developing company). These are issues of long term maintainability.

Let me drill into why I find accessibility an issue. Let us imagine that we continue on the current line of mainstream acceptance. I find it important to allow as even a playing field in the genre as possible. The equipment costs need to be minimal, the investiture in academic institutions needs to be robust. We are at a point where computing power is starting to no longer become a practical issue for complex games. The Raspberry PI can play a game such as Quake III: Arena with a reasonable 1080p resolution, and that is as cheep as it comes. However, currently most games rely on much more expensive architectures and a lot of them also predicate the purchase of Windows on top of that. For this reason, I think a focus on multiplatform play is important, and that we need to be able to produce and play minimal resource versions of games. Targeting something like the Rasberry PI in terms of a solid minimum spec would go a long way toward lowering the accessibility bar.

Now, lets continue on this line of mainstream acceptance to allow me to explain why long term maintainability seem important to me. Let us imagine that we have convinced a school to invest in an E-sports program. This means that they need to establish a curriculum and they need to invest time, effort and money into the process. A sudden change in game logic could invalidate a large sum of investiture. In order to ensure that their efforts are not wasted, schools need the ability to maintain a commonly accepted base of play. Think about the differences between high school, college, and professional play regulations. School-friendly variants like flag football, inta-school accepted regulations, etc. These institutions need the freedom to move as a speed that they can adapt to. A sudden balance patch or the introduction of a new mechanic is not something they can plan around.

Additionally, these games need the ability to become cultural institutions. For this reason we need schools to have access to source code and some degree of reasonable educational licensing for associated iconography and characters. In the end I think that E-sports would greatly benefit from Open Source clones of popular games and genres. Consider Quake III: Arena vs something like OpenArena, both games hone the same skills and really someone can switch between the two with minimal fuss. However, OpenArena has a far more lenient licence, which would allow for the kind of student exploration and remixing that I feel are essential in educational environments.

I've focused mainly on the issue of bringing E-sports into the same sort of entry parody and openness that we see in 'traditional' sports, but I'd like to see what other people consider issues facing E-sports. Please feel free to comment on my own points or present your own!

 

[SSJBlastoise]

I think you're kind of over inflating the popularity of competitive gaming (yes, I'm not going to call it esports). I mean how big is the actual audience for gaming tournaments in the US and other countries besides Korea and China where it is huge. I'm using the US as an example because you're using schools and scholarships as examples. I mean, I doubt there are chess scholarships at different schools (there maybe some at certain schools but not most).

The other issue is that people outside of the gaming community sure as hell wont accept it as a sport. There are people, like me, in the gaming community who don't even see gaming as a sport so why would other people see it as a sport.

Lastly, the cost argument shouldn't really be used. There are many sports that involve a fairly large cost just to start or just to compete in. A couple that spring to mind include sailing and equestrian. I mean sure you could compete with an old boat or horse you bought for under $1000 but in reality you'll be miles behind other competitors with money

 

[briankoontz]

The capitalism that underlies e-sports is going to make the OPs vision very difficult to achieve. Open Source for schools is good for schools but of questionable value for corporations who control the original code. As far as multiplatform goes - the market value of esports is in the spectators. Having esports include handheld systems doesn't work for spectating, at least using current technology. Also, there's the concept of fairness and UI - people playing on different systems would be like some batters in baseball using an aluminum bat while others use wood.

 

[baconsarnie]

One of the unifying things about sports is their ease of entry. To play soccer/football, all you need is a ball. The rules are simple, understood by all of the players and the equipment is minimal.

Whilst elephant polo is a sport, there is a park nearby where i can play all i need is my ... own ... elephant.

Horse racing, target shooting, motor sport ....

Granted SOME sport is easily accessible but that doesn't mean that all sport is.

The most crucial point for e-sports is that the games are not 'pay-to-win', overall skill must be the driving force. Participation may come with an initial cost but victory cannot.

Additionally, these games need the ability to become cultural institutions.

I think that's the kind of thing you need to happen organically, rather than trying to force the issue.

 

[Irick]

The capitalism that underlies e-sports is going to make the OPs vision very difficult to achieve. Open Source for schools is good for schools but of questionable value for corporations who control the original code.

I think there might have been a misinterpretation of this point. I'm not saying e-sport games need to all be open source, I'm saying that Open Source clones of a game would be a good way to prevent the single point of failure that would otherwise threaten academic institutions' investments. Skills developed in a clone game can be applied to the original, though specific strategies may require for instance more knowledge of particular maps. To me when I look at the way to handle esports i'm looking at games as systems. This makes it quite simple, because we can just take the systems and implement them in a similar context in order to train people in the use. The skills you hone in League of Legends still translate to say, Dawngate even if the particulars of the games change.

I think that, as I mentioned, the idea of tiered play is still very much something that will exist. Professional e-sports will obviously have sponsors because that's where the money is. It stands to reason (to me anyway) that as a genre solidifies having a strong, truly free 'reference' implementation can only improve both the state of the art as well as lowering the barrier of entry for someone who wants to learn the genre.

As far as multiplatform goes - the market value of esports is in the spectators. Having esports include handheld systems doesn't work for spectating, at least using current technology. Also, there's the concept of fairness and UI - people playing on different systems would be like some batters in baseball using an aluminum bat while others use wood.

Ah, I see your confusion. I'm not suggesting handheld versions of all games. I'm suggesting independence from platform in terms of software stack and hardware instruction set. My reference to ARM is referring to the fact that it's really cheap to pick up a ARM System On a Chip because of the race in cellular technology, which would allow for very cheap but still quite powerful hardware. I mean, when you look at the K1 from Nvidia you can see a sub 100$ little chip that can handle the next generation UT4 engine's effects at a reasonable resolution.

Control scheme is not my reference, nor is handheld. My background is CS, so platform to me means the hardware or software stack from an application perspective rather than how it is presented to the user.

 

[briankoontz]

I've never thought of colleges having e-sports teams, although now I remember that there have been inter-college Starcraft 2 matches. There's no reason that e-sports can't exist in a university alongside "jock sports".

It seems like it may be more feasible for a corporation to simply license the use of their game to colleges, rather than go the clone Open Source route.

Why open source? Competitive gamers all around the world already play the actual current version of Starcraft 2 and League of Legends. I'm not sure if there is a license fee, but these companies benefit from effectively free advertising as spectators are drawn to watching *their* games played and become more likely to buy or invest their time in the games that they watch.

It seems like open source Clones would just make gamers at colleges annoyed that they aren't playing the real thing, and it would hurt them competitively against players who are playing the actual game. It makes sense for computer science reasons to have open source clones, but not for direct e-sports reasons.

 

[USIncorp]

I think you're kind of over inflating the popularity of competitive gaming (yes, I'm not going to call it esports). I mean how big is the actual audience for gaming tournaments in the US and other countries besides Korea and China where it is huge. I'm using the US as an example because you're using schools and scholarships as examples. I mean, I doubt there are chess scholarships at different schools (there maybe some at certain schools but not most).

At the International 2014, earlier this year, there were 17,000 viewers at the stadium itself, plus (as Valve reported) 20 million unique viewers who streamed the tournament, through twitch, the client or through ESPN. There were, at its peak, 2 million viewers at one time. The prize pool consisted of $10.93 million. Whether you care to admit it or not, e-sports are getting bigger, and if you look [a href=http://www.dailydot.com/esports/dota-2-international-prize-pool-6-million/]here[/a], you can see how it stacked up to other major sporting events this year. Last years League of Legends World Championship had 32 million viewers, more than the World Series.

So no, I don't think he's over inflating the popularity of e-sports in the slightest.

 

[PromethianSpark]

I'm surprised that the OP hasn't got some series slack yet. I have seen people around here be very hostile to the very notion of e-sports. I for one appreciate someone else thinking deeply about this stuff, as I used to do so back when I was in university.

Someone mentioned above the capitalist nature of e-sports, and this can't be understated. I get what you mean by making it open-source, but is this realistic, when developers/publishers will really want to monopolize it. As for the issues of accessibility, this is something that we see great variation in actual sports. For example, old world sports tend to be more accessible than sports in the US, and even then, the sports that where associated with the upper classes where not particularly accessible. Now take some modern 'sports' like Formula One and consider how accessible they really are. If you have ever read Brave New World, Huxley envisioned all sport in the future to require multiple components that where expensive and required frequent replacing. He thought this a natural extension of a culture becoming increasingly obsessed with consumption.

An overall theme of your post is about facilitating a shift of E-sports into a more central, mainstream arena. The problem with this, is that it isn't necessarily an outcome of a sport gaining popularity. A lot of socio-politics goes into a sport being legitimized, promoted, and supported in an official capacity; a fact every Irishman or any other colonized people know too well. The endeavor to create, popularize, and legitimize a support is not really some neutral thing such as common interest, but often a political project on behalf of a cultural group, or in some cases to create a cultural group. This is evident in most American sports, which where an effort to culturally define, distinguish, and create a national identity. Back to the Irish example, there is power in repressing such endeavors.

 

[Duster]

There are quite a few competitive games that can be played with low hardware. League of legends has n64 graphics. Quake 3/live is from 1999. Sc2 and dota 2 have very good optimization. Although for games like cs:go and natural selection 2 you would need a decent rig, it's not common for most of them.

Balance is approached as just a way to stir up weekly drama, like you imply. For example, riot games has done many completely retarded balance changes, but it hasn't affected their numbers at all. In fact they make stupid balance changes many times a month just to spark forum discussion.

Right now esports are a lot weaker than marketing fluff actually puts them out to be, in fact companies publish fake numbers that include viewbots that the company themselves host.

I agree with your core point: too much power is in the hands of the developers as opposed to leagues in your average competitive game. They don't have a problem with that though, the development of esports and it's culture is just something on the side for them to milk.

@insanator
Females make up roughly 1-5% of your average competitive community and nearly all leagues are open already.

 

[Bad Jim]

The capitalism that underlies e-sports is going to make the OPs vision very difficult to achieve. Open Source for schools is good for schools but of questionable value for corporations who control the original code.

I think there might have been a misinterpretation of this point. I'm not saying e-sport games need to all be open source, I'm saying that Open Source clones of a game would be a good way to prevent the single point of failure that would otherwise threaten academic institutions' investments.

While a full competitive game might be a bit too much for an open source project, a competitive game with bare bones visuals and no story/movies/music/voice acting/etc might be cheap enough to do as a Kickstarter project. Since the GPL licenses require the code to be free but say nothing about art assets, third parties could then sell prettier versions for profit, owning their artwork while no-one would own the rules of the game.

Also, such a game does not have to be a knock off. It would need to be a somewhat original game, as legitimacy is what e-sports need most. Legitimacy is the reason why an e-sport game shouldn't be owned by a single company. It shouldn't be something that a company can decide to close at any time if it feels it is not making enough money.

 

[Irick]

Why open source? Competitive gamers all around the world already play the actual current version of Starcraft 2 and League of Legends. I'm not sure if there is a license fee, but these companies benefit from effectively free advertising as spectators are drawn to watching *their* games played and become more likely to buy or invest their time in the games that they watch.

Consider what an open source clone allows. It solves the most amount of problems in the simplest way. It allows for a framework in which any competitive version of the genre can be recreated (including functional map design). It allows for assets to be replaced and games to take on other visual innovations for the purpose of presentation. I feel this is especially important at a college level because it would get interest in the best ways to do these sort of things. Additionally, this would allow for an independent academic standardization. Like I said, a reference implementation.

I feel this is important, because sports are equally about self expression as they are the simple display of skill.

I'm surprised that the OP hasn't got some series slack yet. I have seen people around here be very hostile to the very notion of e-sports. I for one appreciate someone else thinking deeply about this stuff, as I used to do so back when I was in university.

I'm glad it's been civil so far then. Honestly didn't know it was a point of contention.

Someone mentioned above the capitalist nature of e-sports, and this can't be understated. I get what you mean by making it open-source, but is this realistic, when developers/publishers will really want to monopolize it. As for the issues of accessibility, this is something that we see great variation in actual sports. For example, old world sports tend to be more accessible than sports in the US, and even then, the sports that where associated with the upper classes where not particularly accessible. Now take some modern 'sports' like Formula One and consider how accessible they really are. If you have ever read Brave New World, Huxley envisioned all sport in the future to require multiple components that where expensive and required frequent replacing. He thought this a natural extension of a culture becoming increasingly obsessed with consumption.

The tendency to want to monopolize is natural for a profit driven entity, I agree. However, I believe that it is important that we bring the 'ownership' of these e-sports into the realm of a cultural institution. We own football, we own baseball, we own polo, we own cricket and we own chess. I don't think this should be any different when it comes to the concept of esports, though there will clearly be proprietary implementations. Legally this is the case, but culturally and in practicality it is now. It is entirely legal to create a clone of LoL or Quake 3, even down to the map design (measurements are not copyrightable), however I feel that we need to do this as a mater of practicality in order to assure that these sports are open for reinterpretation and remixing.

Consider a situation where Valve and Riot take on the roles of the NFL or FIFA. They preside over their own reference implementation, decide the rules for their members, etc. They even may have a near monopoly on the public exposure to the genre, but there is still a lot of innovation and improvisation being done in every aspect of the game. Spin off concepts, full reskins, minute explorations of the mechanics being done on a wide scale as people organically improve and internalize the concepts. The nerf football, wiffle ball bats, t-ball, etc.

An overall theme of your post is about facilitating a shift of E-sports into a more central, mainstream arena. The problem with this, is that it isn't necessarily an outcome of a sport gaining popularity. A lot of socio-politics goes into a sport being legitimized, promoted, and supported in an official capacity.

I don't disagree, but I'm not really great at political science so I don't have many ideas as to how to handle that in its entirety. However, I do believe that allowing people to iterate and innovate in the way I have described will facilitate a culture in which it will be more easily accepted.

There are quite a few competitive games that can be played with low hardware. League of legends has n64 graphics. Quake 3/live is from 1999. Sc2 and dota 2 have very good optimization. Although for games like cs:go and natural selection 2 you would need a decent rig, it's not common for most of them.

I agree, I think that it honestly may be a factor in their popularity and success. However, I think that it can be taken to an even greater degree by allowing real low spec hardware to run stripped down versions of the core game.

I agree with your core point: too much power is in the hands of the developers as opposed to leagues in your average competitive game. They don't have a problem with that though, the development of esports and it's culture is just something on the side for them to milk.

I'm sure that there are people in these companies that genuinely have an interest in the development of esports outside the context of profit. People have passions, while we can be cynical about the motivations of a company, I don't think we should discount the fact that companies are made of individuals.

While a full competitive game might be a bit too much for an open source project, a competitive game with bare bones visuals and no story/movies/music/voice acting/etc might be cheap enough to do as a Kickstarter project. Since the GPL licenses require the code to be free but say nothing about art assets, third parties could then sell prettier versions for profit, owning their artwork while no-one would own the rules of the game.

Yeah, this is sort of my thinking as well. Though I honestly would probably go with a MIT or BSD licence personally because I see this more as an attempt of standardization. Art assets are important in making a game come alive, but as I've mentioned I think this has more to do with making specific implementations feel unique. (additional mechanics or balance tweaks could also do this.) Kind of like a Star Wars Chess set, or a Marvel Monopoly game.

Also, such a game does not have to be a knock off. It would need to be a somewhat original game, as legitimacy is what e-sports need most. Legitimacy is the reason why an e-sport game shouldn't be owned by a single company. It shouldn't be something that a company can decide to close at any time if it feels it is not making enough money.

This is an interesting idea. I agree with most of the points, but I never considered it as an issue of legitimacy.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I'll just say this right now.

We need to integrate male and female leagues. If this is ever going to take off, it would be really nice if we didn't start off with integrated sexism, or we're never going to get rid of it.

The biggest "esport" games at the moment are moba like games and from what I understand the player base skews more heavily towards male players than FPS. Females are a significant enough minority that they might want their own tournaments just so they can have something to participate in. In fact a search of google for this shows a controversy that there was a news article where one of the all female teams was banned from a female tournament for playing too well, "like a boy." So the concept of all integrated tournaments sounds like equality but in the same way isn't encouraging to a struggling female player base.

 

[Duster]

The biggest "esport" games at the moment are moba like games and from what I understand the player base skews more heavily towards male players than FPS. Females are a significant enough minority that they might want their own tournaments just so they can have something to participate in. In fact a search of google for this shows a controversy that there was a news article where one of the all female teams was banned from a female tournament for playing too well, "like a boy." So the concept of all integrated tournaments sounds like equality but in the same way isn't encouraging to a struggling female player base.

But there is no seperation of leagues. If there is a good female, she can play on a male team. There are no rules against it, they just rarely ever do. The only girls I can think of off the top of my head are an ns2 players, a sc2 player and a cs:go player. There is probably 1 or two girls in league tournies though.

And it's not so much a reflection on a girls average skill in a game, but when you have thousands of skill males and a few skilled females the statistical chance of a girl succeeding in tryouts is low.