[News] NHL launches international e-sports tournament with $100k prize pool

[OmegaV4]

Originally Posted by DJones

Why the hell would they do that?

It's the NHL promoting their own sport. They will in all likelihood lose money on this and they know that.

I'll go to what Completely said, there is no point to watch two people play a video game version of NHL, when they can go and watch the actual sport, or play the actual sport.

[DJones]

Originally Posted by OmegaV4

I'll go to what Completely said, there is no point to watch two people play a video game version of NHL, when they can go and watch the actual sport, or play the actual sport.

You could say that about all of e-sports haha. In ten years, people watching other people play video games that they could buy themselves will be more popular than the NHL is.

[Winsor_Pilates]

To each their own but I'll never understand watching other people play videogames. Calling it e-sports instead of video games is strange to me too.

But maybe I'm just getting old.

[stone hands]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

To each their own but I'll never understand watching other people play videogames. Calling it e-sports instead of video games is strange to me too.

But maybe I'm just getting old.

I grew up playing video games as well as hockey. I watch the nhl and esports for the same reason: watching professionals play games I enjoy (hockey, dota2, counter strike, street fighter, etc) at a high level is exciting. Just like I couldn't dangle like Patrick Kane in real life, i'd never have as good of aim or situational awareness as get_right in counterstrike

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by stone hands

I grew up playing video games as well as hockey. I watch the nhl and esports for the same reason: watching professionals play games I enjoy (hockey, dota2, counter strike, street fighter, etc) at a high level is exciting. Just like I couldn't dangle like Patrick Kane in real life, i'd never have as good of aim or situational awareness as get_right in counterstrike

I agree with this. I love watching elite Guilty Gear or BlazBlue players pull complicated and reactionary things off that I couldn't in a hundred tries. That said I've never been all too interested in sports video games as a genre so NHL e-sports doesn't appeal to me.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

official rules available here: https://support.faceit.com/hc/en-us/...Official-Rules

Some highlights:

So long.

Just play NHL 94:

Official rules:

No Roenick

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by stone hands

I grew up playing video games as well as hockey. I watch the nhl and esports for the same reason: watching professionals play games I enjoy (hockey, dota2, counter strike, street fighter, etc) at a high level is exciting. Just like I couldn't dangle like Patrick Kane in real life, i'd never have as good of aim or situational awareness as get_right in counterstrike

The way some of those guys click a mouse is unreal. Should be on all the year end highlight reels.

[stone hands]

Originally Posted by Igottago

The way some of those guys click a mouse is unreal. Should be on all the year end highlight reels.

The way those teenagers smacked a peice of rubber with a stick was so impressive that it should be on all the year end highlights

[Johnny Makarov]

Make sure you hide your IP address with a VPN if you are in Calgary.
Wideman Effect.

[Winsor_Pilates]

One thing I wonder about "e-sports" is the ability to be an elite player and live a healthy life?
Is the amount of gaming required to be amongst the best healthy for the human body and mind?

The rise of this is relatively new, but will be interesting to see if this gets studied in the future and what connection there is (if any) to e sports with things like obesity, depression & addiction.

[DJones]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

One thing I wonder about "e-sports" is the ability to be an elite player and live a healthy life?
Is the amount of gaming required to be amongst the best healthy for the human body and mind?

The rise of this is relatively new, but will be interesting to see if this gets studied in the future and what connection there is (if any) to e sports with things like obesity, depression & addiction.

They sit at a computer for 8 hours a day. Not really different than any other office job.

Anyone serious about it should have some heavy cardio. Would help with the burnout.

[Scornfire]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

One thing I wonder about "e-sports" is the ability to be an elite player and live a healthy life?
Is the amount of gaming required to be amongst the best healthy for the human body and mind?

The rise of this is relatively new, but will be interesting to see if this gets studied in the future and what connection there is (if any) to e sports with things like obesity, depression & addiction.

Being competetive isn't at all prohibitive to one's health. It's just another avenue of addiction if you want to go down that route, not quite a harbringer of societal destruction. I'm a massively hardcore gamer (accrued over 1888 DAYS of playtime since 2003, though that includes probably 1/3 AFK time) and I'd describe my experience as nothing but positive.

[dustygoon]

I’m in for sure. Unless they don’t let me use pelle eklund and “the move”.

[Groot]

This topic is hilarious to me. Why watch hockey when you can just play it? Why watch football or baseball or soccer? Cant you just go play those as well? It's because people enjoy watching others that are at the peak of their "game" especially when it relates to something they also enjoy. And the streamers that enjoy success are the Crosby's or Ovechkin's of their respective medium.

"But they're not athletes!"

But Stanford University has conducted several studies that show gamers of a 'professional' variety deal with reaction times and training for such that rival professional sports. Anyone can go and find those studies. And then that doesn't even include comparative studied to other sports like bowling, golf, racing etc.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

One thing I wonder about "e-sports" is the ability to be an elite player and live a healthy life?
Is the amount of gaming required to be amongst the best healthy for the human body and mind?

The rise of this is relatively new, but will be interesting to see if this gets studied in the future and what connection there is (if any) to e sports with things like obesity, depression & addiction.

Is the amount of physical training and abuse required for professional sports any different? We're only starting to know more about CTE, and many athletes end their careers with destroyed knees/hips/feet/backs and whatever. At the highest levels, drugs, injections and whatever are also extremely common.

Olympic training is on a different level too. I don't think any of it is truly "healthy."

[Hackey]

Originally Posted by OmegaV4

Interesting that they would go with NHL as their game for E-Sports.

If they knew anything, the best place to make money for dabbling in E-Sports would be either League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

You think their objective is to make money? Why would they go into an established space that they know nothing about to make money? Obviously its a way to try and promote the NHL. They likely see more of a correlation between people who play hockey video games and like hockey. Or at minimum more of a chance that something like this may draw them to hockey if they have an interest in the game.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Is the amount of physical training and abuse required for professional sports any different? We're only starting to know more about CTE, and many athletes end their careers with destroyed knees/hips/feet/backs and whatever. At the highest levels, drugs, injections and whatever are also extremely common.

Olympic training is on a different level too. I don't think any of it is truly "healthy."

Fair point that being a pro athlete can have issues and that's a concern and ongoing study in itself.
My opinion is these gamer issues will be different however and likely wider spread.

The human body isn't meant to sit in a chair 16 hours a day completely wired into what's on a screen in front of you.
All while mostly in isolation from any other actual humans and with irregular sleep patterns.

Physical sport gives you physical health, heart health, proven mental benefits of exercise, socialization with others, hand eye and motor skills and typically a very healthy diet. You usually get your rest too, knowing how important recovery is (physically and mentally).

E sports gives you reaction time perhaps, a sense of competition, money, but not much else.
Do these top players take time to live an otherwise healthy life with exercise, a good diet, lots of actual human socialization and a regular sleep pattern?

[D as in David]

I foresee future banner raising in Edmonton based on esport championships. (do they have pre-seasons in esports?)

Unless, of course, Edmonton gamers are also NG.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

To each their own but I'll never understand watching other people play videogames. Calling it e-sports instead of video games is strange to me too.

But maybe I'm just getting old.

I used to think like this until I forced myself to watch some finals of a game I actually enjoy, Rainbow Six.

It's the same reason I watch hockey instead of playing. Because I'm horrible at it and watching the best go at it is completely different