“It’s not tiddlywinks, it’s more like the darts.”
Daniel Wrightson, the President of the New Zealand Gaming Championships, is clearly enjoying himself as he warms up the studio audience before the first League of Legends match to be broadcast on New Zealand television – the first time an E-Sports event has ever been broadcast on a TV network in New Zealand. His point is that the punters should feel free to shout and cheer, but the comparison is off.
Where the darts would be full of middle aged men with potbellies bellowing over beers, here the competitors are kids hopped up on Red Bull. Two rows of nervous looking young men line up on opposite sides of a TV studio. They mutter to each other, occassionally cracking jokes, or their knuckles to warm up their hands. Fingers are stretched, in readiness for the rapid clicking to come.
The players aren’t the only ones preparing for the big show. A small army of technicians and camera operators swarm around the studio, finding the perfect shots. Hosts and pundits rehearse their lines. The atmosphere is tense. This hasn’t been done before. A final run through on camera, and then the call goes out. Next time won’t just be live, it will be live, the emphasis sending a shiver of anticipation through the room.
Technical difficulties strike early in the first televised match, between the Villains and Team Vulnerability. A player has a malfunctioning screen, and the game is paused before a spell has been cast in anger. The audience wait. The players wait. The action resumes at a low key tempo, before there is a another malfunction. Nothing is going to plan, a spectator server goes down and the studio audience groans. The ‘shoutcasters’, also known as commentators, assure the TV audience that they’ll be back up soon. Apparently a cord was kicked out of place.
Explosions, flashes, lights fill the screen, followed by the words ‘First Blood’. A kill has been made. The advantage swings back and forth, and the volume from both teams rises, commands and warnings shouted into headsets. The match is a classic, the audience on the edge of their seats. But late in the piece, a huge channel opens up in the centre and the Villians pour through the gap, an unstoppable, overwhelming wave. “GG”, the players say. Good game.
Don’t call them cyber athletes
It’s the oldest debate in the E-Sports world. Are they legitimate sports? How do they compare to traditional codes? Are the competitors nothing but nerdy boys in their parent’s basements, or are they athletes? For the players themselves, the answer is neither yes nor no. The debate itself is irrelevant.
“There’s this big inferiority complex in E-Sports, with everyone always pushing it to be compared to real sports. But it’s its own independent thing, there’s no need to push it to be exactly the same thing as real sports.” That’s the view of Jack ‘Jackattack’ Gifford, one of the players on No Logic Gaming. Given the importance of team strategy, hand eye coordination and quick reflexes, there is always a temptation to use comparisons to traditional sports as a hook.
The comparison also helps with media coverage for fledgling events such as the New Zealand Gaming Championships. The presentation of the event, broadcast on Sky Sports, is very closely modelled on traditional sports broadcasting. A telegenic host introduces pundits, who weigh in with expert opinions and analysis before the match. Commentary runs throughout the action, and on the conclusion the captain is summoned for an after match interview.
A major function of the debate is to make the growing popularity of E-Sports accessible to traditional media organisations and audiences. The vast majority of mass media coverage of E-Sports to date, particularly in New Zealand, has focused on novelty. While that is understandable given the relatively recent emergence of E-Sports as a phenomenon, it can leave the players themselves feeling patronised. When approached for an interview and told the line of questioning would focus what it’s like to be a top level gamer, a group of competitors collectively rolled their eyes in derision. “Oh, so it’s going to be one of those interviews”, said one dismissively.
The subtext of the comparison with traditional sports is that E-Sports somehow need to measure up – that if the answer is that E-Sports are not real sports, they will be seen as a lesser pursuit. For sporting purists though, there may be cause to fear the opposite. NZ Gaming Championship analyst Ian Seaton can sympathise with those that compare E-Sports to traditional sports. However, he believes that any such comparison is rapidly becoming outdated. “We are moving into the future. This is something that our generation leads, people in their 20s and 30s, and we regard this as the next generation of sports. “
Triumph of Youth
The competitors at the New Zealand Gaming Championships are young. Absurdly young. Some are 16, the average age is about 18, and they can be considered veterans. One of the analysts, Cameron ‘Crunch’ Russell, has retired from top level gaming after a career that saw him become one of the best players in the country. He’s 21.
The reason for this is simple. Reaction speeds are all important in E-Sports, with some platforms requiring players to make upwards of 300 actions (mouse clicks and keystrokes) every minute to be competitive at an elite level. “When you’re young you have faster reflexes, and having those extra couple of milliseconds can make a lot of difference” said Jack Gifford. Time to practice is another factor - to make the grade at the New Zealand Gaming Championships players must spend hours every day training, in some cases professional gamers train for sixty hours a week or more.
The flipside? Emotional maturity can make or break a match. Younger players can be susceptible to mood swings based on the state of the match or tournament. Freddie Tressider, a coach for an international E-Sports franchise, argues the mental game is just as important as a quick trigger finger. The pressure on players sometimes includes a huge audience. Those who compete in the flagship tournament for the game DOTA 2, known as The International, play in front of more than 15,000 spectators inside the arena, and millions more watching online. Tressider has seen less experienced players “shaking at the table” when they first have to play on a big stage.
The community is also keen to break down the stereotypes that have traditionally been attached to gamers. As a seemingly solitary pursuit, gamers have long had a reputation of being insular, anti-social and nerdy. Nothing could be further from the truth, argues Ian Seaton. “People don’t see it so much, because the face value of it is all on computers. However, “these guys have lives. “They go to the gym, they like to do drinking, they like to do ‘everyday Joe’ things. It’s just that gaming is one of the things they are good at and something they prefer to do.”
The Future of E-Sports
In Australasia alone, there are more than 300,000 registered League of Legends players. As a comparison, between New Zealand and Australia combined, there are currently fewer registered rugby players. With the online nature of the vast majority of coverage, there is potential for that to grow even more as wider exposure is gained. “For New Zealand’s growth in particular, we need normal media coverage, although it’s not expected” said Seaton. “We need posters, billboards, TV ads. There are a whole lot of people outside our current community who can, and I guarantee you will be interested in E-Sports. They just don’t know it exists.”
It’s this growth potential that has Daniel Wrightson upbeat about the future of E-Sports. “There’s a whole community who love it. It’s giving them a voice and a chance to enjoy what they do, and be experts at it.” He has big plans for what could be with League of Legends, and wants to take the next event to a bigger venue. There are more hypothetical plans for a trans-Tasman series between New Zealand and Australia.
Regardless, the trend is clear. Gaming, and the gamers, are not going away. While there is a long way to go before New Zealand catches up with the rest of the world, more events are certain to follow. Whether it is through League of Legends or another platform, it won’t be game over for E-Sports any time soon.
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