Good Game: The Rise of the Professional Cyber Athlete | Hacker News Reader

Good Game: The Rise of the Professional Cyber Athlete

newyorker.com

99 pointsaustinz31 comments

Ugh. The article made the mistake of making it sound like the casters were amazed by the fact that Scarlett is female. This is the sign of someone who's clearly an onlooker and doesn't pay close attention the eSports scene. While there's definitely things such as GamerGate and such making the gaming scene look terribly unsavory for female participants, in truth the eSports community has long since fully welcomed Scarlett as a true gamer, girl or not. I dislike articles forcing this focus on her being a girl and somehow sticking out for it, much like women in tech hate being glorified just for being "a woman in tech." They have real skill and contribution outside of being an outlier for their gender.

If anyone who knows what's going on is ever amazed she won it's because she was actually an underdog in the specific matchup, not because she's a female, let alone for being a "foreigner" (non-Korean). In fact, the amount of amazement for being a foreigner winning was pretty low by the time of the match the article writes about. I remember watching the game mentioned here last thanksgiving, and it coming down to the wire, and the audience didn't care that Scarlett was "a token female" or anything, we were just excited about the awesome match and that Scarlett pulled a miracle win. The casters were no different, all eye-popping was purely about the awesome decision making and creativity leading to an excellent game.

Don't make the gaming community sound more sexist than it already does on its own. Scarlett may have faced difficulties or felt singled out in the past for it, but it certainly wasn't true in the fashion depicted in this article.

Considering just this summer there was that "male only" Hearthstone tournament controversy, I'd say it's not just GG but the gaming community in general...

eSports might be getting better at it, but it's definitely not there yet...

That tournament was run by IeSF - an organization that is grossly incompetent and disconnected from reality. They have very little traction in the eSports scene and are in no way representative of eSports as a whole.

That just sounds like an excuse, same as GG saying doxing and sexism has nothing to do with them and it's just a small group of few unrelated people...

As a comparison, IeSF is to eSports as ISIS is to Islam.

Make of that what you will. I, for one, would rather not be grouped with them.

Disclaimer: I support women-only events. I think they're an important tool in helping decrease the immense disparity when it comes to men/women in eSports. I don't think they're necessary because women can't compete with men, but I think they encourage more women to participate.

I don't know how can you make this comparison. IeSF was universally condemned for that decision on various gaming subreddits and by prominent community members on twitter. In fact that controversy is the most publicity they've ever gotten. Their actual event has gone largely unnoticed, got ridiculed a bit on /r/starcraft.

It seems like you have an axe to grind.

Scarlett is not female. Female is a sex. Woman is a gender. Scarlett identifies as a woman, but is not female.

While a minor point, it's important to remember when discussing eSports, because apart from Scarlett no woman has had nearly the same success (as a player).

Edit: Come on guys. How else do you want me to say it? I tried to be as PC and limited as I could. The downvotes are unnecessary. It's impossible to have a discussion on this topic when it's not okay to point out that Scarlett may have an advantage in that she was exposed to male levels of hormones for most of her life, socially developed as a male at one point, and didn't face the adolescent stigma of gaming that girls her same age would have.

I have nothing against Scarlett (except that she plays Zerg) and her life choices are her business (except that she plays Zerg), but she isn't female and, barring some significant advances in biology, never will be.

Just to be clear, Scarlett is biologically a male, correct? The terminology is confusing me, not trying to be offensive.

I'm not sure what you mean. Scarlett was born a male, but as to her current physiology, that's her business.

Yes, at birth.

You are technically correct, she was born biologically male, and she certainly must have had a more straightforward relationship with gaming while growing up that was more socially accepted than if she were born a girl.

I wouldn't make the testosterone argument, definitely not as an "advantage". There's little evidence that biological characteristics actually affect gaming tastes or skills other than correlation (if this is false I'm happy to read any sound studies).

It's also remotely possible she doesn't attract (that much) hate from the gamer community because many of the guys just think she's just even more of a societal misfit than themselves.

But today she has a large and respectful fanbase, several of whom don't even know she was born male. While there was a bunch of flaming when she first came on the scene over 2 years ago when she first attended Iron Maiden tourneys, she's now quite well-loved because of her skill and online personality (she's one of the most-followed SC2 players on twitter).

Not being a biologist, I can't really say anything with regards to the hormonal advantage, though I wouldn't be surprised if it did play a part - the brains of young men and women are different, and it's likely that hormones play a role.

She does attract a ton of hate. Any reddit thread focusing on Scarlett will have heaps of ridiculous comments (in both directions). James Harding made his famous comment about Scarlett which InControl decided to white knight even though Scarlett herself said she found it harmless, and everyone on reddit took that opportunity to shit all over her.

I do think she gets about 1000% less hate than she would have if this were 1994, but there's still stupidity on both sides of the gender equation.

> Edit: Come on guys. How else do you want me to say it?

How 'bout don't? Biological sex is pretty complex, you're not her doctor, and we're having a casual conversation about a woman. "Female" is a perfectly acceptable descriptor (well, aside from the whole Ferengi-esque feeemale weirdness.)

For anyone else who doesn't know much about the Starcraft scene, it's a huge deal to be a top-level non-korean player. The term "foreigner" means a non-korean in the context of the SC scene. A lot of high level foreigners will actually end up moving to Korea to play and train with their team.

I don't play Starcraft 2 much, or video games in general, for that matter, but I do enjoy occasionally watching SC2 casts, mostly out of nostalgia for the original game which I enjoyed quite a bit as a kid.

I've seen Scarlett's games before and while I had gathered that she is a woman, I had no idea she was transgender - honestly, a pleasant surprise, because I'm a trans woman too. I enjoyed this article, and I found it refreshing that it wasn't invasive with regards to her gender identity, while still being explicit and not just sweeping it under the rug. I'm quite happy with this kind of representation - and I'm even happier to find out that I have this in common with such a highly-regarded player.

One note to some of the commenters in this thread, though - please don't speculate on our biology like that, it's incredibly rude. She deserves to be celebrated for her accomplishments regardless of the gender assigned to her at birth.

McGrath provides an fascinating view into a unique individual. That is, he is using Scarlett to talk about e-sports, not the other way around. And I think this causes him to miss the whole story. Scarlett does not represent e-sports, unfortunately. The fact that she was able to climb onto a global stage, starting as a nobody, is undeniably incredibly. However, with "The Rise of the Professional Cyber Athlete" as its title, I expected the article to be about the rise of e-sports, not of a singular e-sports athlete.

E-sports is on the cusp on exploding, and video-game live-streaming service Twitch.tv plus the increasing availability of the internet at all times (smartphones help) are a large part of the reason why. Dota2 and League of Legends (both MOBAs) lead the forefront when it comes to players and money, but Starcraft II (real-time strategy a la Age of Empires), while declining, is not going anywhere. Additionally, Hearthstone (Blizzard's online card game) has exploded onto the scene in the past year, proving to appeal to casual and competitive gamers alike with its free-to-play model and low learning curve. Rounding out the pack are the fighting game communities (Super Smash Bros, Ultra Street Fighter IV) and first-person shooters (Halo, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive). Yes, console-based games have a harder time creating a high-level competitive scene, but it isn't impossible. Starcraft 1, Counter-strike: Source, and Super Smash Bros Melee have all been being played competitively since the turn of the century, almost.

I'm rambling at this point...

If anyone has any questions regarding the e-sports scene, from local grassroots tournament organization to being a high-level competitive player, to other Scarlett-esque people, please ask. I'm most familiar with Hearthstone and Super Smash Bros.

I haven't even read the article yet, but the title "The Rise of the Professional Cyber Athlete" heavily implies a focus on not the sport, but the people that practices that sport.

I wouldn't think that it only focuses on one specific person though.

I think the problem with the console games has always been that the development of their scenes was not organic. MLG dropped Halo almost immediately (or possibly as a result of) after Microsoft stopped sponsoring it.

Smash and Street Fighter on the other hand, have developed somewhat organically and Smash is starting to grow in spite of Nintendo (or at least Nintendo's decision making 5 years ago).

I wish there was more Smash content on Twitch, because the game is incredible to watch.

Smash is very difficult to stream, with the two biggest factors being that it's not on a computer and the lack of built-in PvP in Melee and Project M. GIMR of VGBC is doing some very innovative things, though.

The Scarlett vs Bomber game is on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIygo3bIVmo

"Oh my god, Scarlett is going gas" at 1m30s

Here's the bit where Scarlett breaks the stalemate with the burrowed banelings, complete with caster excitement and audience reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIygo3bIVmo&t=25m30s

This article is 10 years late, honestly.

This. There was a similar article in the New York Times this week talking about how surprising it is that COD players are competing in million dollar tournament despite the fact that such large scale tournaments existed for games such as counter strike over a decade ago. Major starcraft tournaments have been occurring for even longer than that.

The largest Counter-Strike prizepool so far was ~$500,000. And, while Quake, Starcraft, WC3, and original Counter-Strike certainly had tournaments and a devoted following, the scene has exploded to a much larger audience and larger prizepools in the last few years, primarily on the back of streaming services like Twich and games such as Dota 2 and League of Legends.

http://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments

Look, I'm a huge gamer. But I think calling them "athletes" is an insult to actual athletes. Totally fine with referring to Pro gaming as E-Sports, but calling them athletes is taking it too far.

How about bowlers then? Or archers? Pool? Its a fuzzy line; but I agree, this one goes over the line.

No-one calls Chess players athletes.

yeah, if they're not risking serious brain damage, they're not a real athlete

So, what qualifies as an athlete?

An athlete (American and British English) or sportsperson, sportsman or sportswoman (British English) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed and/or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs.[1]

Most professional athletes have particularly well-developed physiques obtained by extensive physical training and strict exercise accompanied by a strict dietary regimen.

The word "athlete" is a romanization of the Greek: άθλητὴς, athlētēs, one who participates in a contest; from ἄθλος, áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, a contest or feat. It is the general term for all participants in any physical sport; its application to those who participate in other activities, such as horse riding or driving, is somewhat controversial.

So it's extremely subjective.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com