Everyone Else Is Trash

The fact that e-sports has exploded I think has a lot to do with how they've become more similar to real-world sports. We've moved from very artificial e-sports like Starcraft, fighting, racing (usually 1v1 games with extreme focus), to distinct role-based "MOBA" games like Overwatch, League of Legends that are much more similar to popular existing games like soccer and baseball.

Unlike in the earlier games, they rely slightly less than pure mechanical skill, which makes the sports accessible. They're team games with differentiated roles, allowing beginners a way into the game playing with, rather than against their friends. Sounds familiar? This could describe soccer, basketball, football, and all of the top spectator sports today.

Their only real substantial difference is that they're far more accessible, requiring only equipment that many already have (the games intentionally minimize system requirements) and don't require real physical athleticism.

I think it's no surprise they're becoming popular as spectator sports: they're building on a proven formula, but adding a dash of accessibility.

So I guess this is a thing now, writing long-form farewell letters for fans when you are traded or cut. Honestly, I kind of like it. I've never liked IT more than when I read his farewell. And while I'd never heard of Doublelift or TSM before, and don't really know anything about League of Legends, I enjoyed reading this article too. Sports are more interesting when you know more about what the players are thinking.

I dream of a day when 120 character tweets by celebrities and presidents are behind us, and long form content is back in style.

My teammates and I had played for years at this point and despite being better at the forums than the game, we knew our way around the meta and had enough experience to make sensible decisions on the fly. Even then, we weren't ever within touching distance of the top tiers. Not even close.

Every tourney we were watched, jeered and very occasionally cheered by thousands of other players as we muddled through early stages against other weaker teams before eventually being out meta'd and out played by better players and it was brutal, adrenaline-shaking dopamine-flooded experience. It was physically addictive at its best, and absolutely soul crushing at worst.

Even within my short, strictly amateur 'career' in esports, the gulf between the top teams and everybody else was crazy. The level of dedication and raw focus the eventual winners possessed was frankly insane and something I simply wouldn't ever be able to muster. These guys who are already mechanically superb are living and breathing their games.

I genuinely can't even begin to imagine what it's like for professional LoL players at the top of the scene, small teams competing for huge prize pools with individual performance publicly dissected and analysed in microscopic detail by hordes of armchair pundits.

Throw in the inevitable post-tournament rosterpocalypse and flakey team management, I can't help but feel professional esports is cannibalising these players.

Video games don't interest me these days, but the spirit of competition is one thing I miss about them. I always wonder what it's like to face the kind of pressure that top performers do.

I rather like the US army recruiting slogan of old:

be the best you can be

It doesn't lead to being able to write blow-off letters on fan sites, but it makes me happy. I think I'm a low bar achiever.

Thank goodness for Firefox's "Reader" mode.

E-sports seems like a bad joke that went on for too long. It goes to show that if you pump enough money into something, it will become a thing. The old saying "if you strap enough rockets to a pig, it will fly!" is basically it.

I hope not every 'sport' or 'hobby' come to that level, as it brings so much sadness and fake happiness in competition.