A few weeks ago a friend of mine convinced to participate in a video gaming tournament. The game in question was Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U, also known as, Smash 4 or ssb4. It's a fighting game with a simple objective, attack your opponent off the screen. It includes characters from all walks of digital life from games like Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, and even Mario. After realizing the huge learning curve for the skills required to get involved in competitive gaming, I was introduced to the exciting new world of E-Sports.
E-Sports is something that has already gained traction in South Korea. It is now making its impact in America and the response has been huge. Vice covered this emerging sport through their Vice Sports documentary team. If that isn’t enough credibility to put on the sport then how about the fact that some ESPN channels have gaming events broadcast on them due to popular demand. This is probably old news to some, but this is all new to me. The biggest game that gets watched like sports is League of Legends. It is fascinating to see how our competitive nature comes out.
So I started playing Smash games casually and transitioned into playing competitively. This game gets played a lot in the Midwest and my theory is because staying inside during the winter for midwesterners can get boring. Midwest Mayhem in its eighth year this year was the name of the tournament. For my first time in a pool of over two hundred players, I didn't completely embarrass myself according to one of the announcers calling the game at the event.
So how did this phenomenon occur? Well thanks to streaming services like Twitch and YouTube, any gamer has the potential to be a pro because the equipment is affordable and rules have no choice but to be followed because the game is built that way. Athletes have to rest their bodies, but some pro gamers train for over twenty hours straight, or even more. This is what separates the boys and girls from the men and women because E-Sport training tends to take longer and requires a lot of variables to be in control. In that same Vice Documentary on E-Sports, I saw how Rick Fox, the former basketball player, was now an E-Sports franchise owner. So intense training, sponsorships, and franchising are all concepts familiar with sports and yet so unfamiliar to me when related to video games.
I thought about these different professionals, and how they get to play these video games as their JOB. I wonder whether the fun ever gets sucked out by the pressure of winning, or that they are motivated to be the best for the sake of saying they’re the best. Either way, they bring the best out of players by showcasing themselves. My main is Mario and out of a pool of over two hundred, I lost my first match, won my second, and lost my third which kicked me out of brackets.
My reason for sharing this experience really was to understand where I stand with this genre of entertainment. I was never a sports fan until my friend got me into hockey and the Blackhawks during their successful dynasty. However, I haven't been watching hockey on my own too much because even though it may be more exciting and fast than any other traditional sports, nothing gets my heart pounding like watching a close Smash 4 match. I have yelled out at YouTube videos for their intense gameplay sometimes and I don’t even do that for regular sports. My motivation to watch and appreciate good competition fuels my own passion for learning about the game. And that is why I love E-Sports.
