Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Recognition by the Mainstream

Today I saw the second post from ESPN on League of Legends so I wanted to share with everyone.

http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/tech/post/_/id/3979/league-of-legends-mimics-regular-sports

There is a great video in this article.  It interviews teams qualifying to be a salaried teams in season 3. These players are competing for a year long salary.  This will allow players to dedicate their lives like any other professional to their sport.

The article does a great job at showing how dedicated these players are to their profession.  Also how the industry of e-Sports has grown with "viewership that trumps the NHL" .  This fact, while not quantified in the article, is pretty amusing.  That a "fake sport" has more viewership than a "real" sport.


Another really cool part of this article is this
We’re hoping to build a Monday Night Football-type experience where you can see an exciting, high-production-value show. With this structure we are setting up, fans will be able to tune in Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and see their favorite teams play. We created a studio in Los Angeles and hired producers with backgrounds from the NFL and the Olympics in order to do that type of storytelling that they do so well in pro sports.” 

You can see the similarities when the commentators are running play by plays similar to an ESPN Sportcenter episode. Yes there is actual strategy and break down that sometimes is the chaos of a video game. You just need to learn how to see it.  Just like in football there is misdirection and a lot of chaos in the trenches.  While in football everyone really just focus who has the ball in e-Sports every player has the ball which can make it difficult but that much more exciting s you never now who will make a big play.



See Jatt breaking down a  late game play during the North American Qualifiers.


There is a misconceptions about gamers and gaming teams that the article reinforces that I would like to point out.

" I can already envision the bottles of Mountain Dew littering the floor." 

  One thing all the professional teams have learned quickly is that to compete at this level they have to be mentally and physically sound. Most professional teams especially in Korea maintain a strict eating and exercise diet. The stereotype of gamers surrounded by junk food may have some credibility to the average gamer should not be cast on to these professionals.  While many still take energy drinks during tournaments, gone are endless packages of junk food for these pros.

The best is this final quote
There have been eSports events in Korea with over 100,000 attendants, and we see that as something in our near-term horizon. For us, it’s go big or go home.

Korea has been the mecca for e-Sports the past ten years.  My dream is that the North American scene can be come as big as Korea.  So far we filled the USC stadium at the World Championship Series. Who knows what next years World Championships will hold for us.

World Championship Series in the Fall in the USC sports arena.  Wish I was there.

Remember the first rule in League of Legends: Don't Die.


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