[News] Marek - recent 1st round pick unlikely to play in NHL due to video game addiction

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Point Blank

You realize the eSports scene is very much an industry now right? There’s tons of sponsorships, coaches, and players practice as a team hours per day just like pro athletes.

I find this depressing. Everything fun eventually gets monetized, professionalized, and turned into a competition. I'm waiting for the Porno World Cup of 2022 to roll around and give everyone a chance to analyze the play, stroke-by-stroke, only to realize even one's masturbation skills are third-rate and unworthy.

[Samonadreau]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Why is one any more ridiculous than the other? The entire basis of professional sports is entertainment, and I think the same goes for competitive gaming.

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Do elaborate.

Originally Posted by Point Blank

You realize the eSports scene is very much an industry now right? There’s tons of sponsorships, coaches, and players practice as a team hours per day just like pro athletes.

I was fully expecting a few responses like this. I realize it's my 100% opinion and I don't have any gaming consoles so I'm completely biased but it seems ridiculous to me. Nothing wrong with gaming. But I can't put a Sidney Crosby, Lebron James, Mike Trout, or Tom Brady in the same conversion as whoever is the 'Gretzky' of gaming. Sorry. You might, but not me.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Samonadreau

I was fully expecting a few responses like this. I realize it's my 100% opinion and I don't have any gaming consoles so I'm completely biased but it seems ridiculous to me. Nothing wrong with gaming. But I can't put a Sidney Crosby, Lebron James, Mike Trout, or Tom Brady in the same conversion as whoever is the 'Gretzky' of gaming. Sorry. You might, but not me.

I don't expect to convince you one way or the other but there is a very high level of skill, dedication, and talent required for people to be at the pinnacle of some games.

For me personally it is mindblowing how good the top BlazBlue players in the world are - the gap between me and them is no different from the gap between a kid in Junior B and a Sidney Crosby - we are talking about total mastery of nuances and the ability to see deep and react at 1/60th's of a second. It might not be true for every genre , but I am honestly more impressed by Evo tournament videos than I am by, for example, baseball highlights. YMMV. Physical sports are obviously more physical but seeing the best of the best compete in anything that requires complex pattern recognition, hand-eye coordination, and twitch timing in person vs person situations can be very entertaining.

Heck even watching the elite players in the world for things like Chess, Go, Karuta, Musical instruments, or seeing and appreciating high-level photography, art, cinematography, or writing has its place. It's about appreciating people for their ability to master things that us plebes are happy to be "pretty good" at. It's not about the label of sport and fixating on the contrast between sport and e-sport is missing the intrinsic value.

Beyond that, even at the professional level human beings are drawn to try and emulate to the extent of their ability the highly successful businessmen and scientists and doctors and engineers who have left their mark on the world. Those are not public spectacles like sports and e-sports because they are long-play realities - but the autobiographies and research papers that the elite of the world provide us with are a source of fascination. Excellence breeding competition and competition breeding excellence - there is something incredible about that.

[Point Blank]

Originally Posted by Samonadreau

I was fully expecting a few responses like this. I realize it's my 100% opinion and I don't have any gaming consoles so I'm completely biased but it seems ridiculous to me. Nothing wrong with gaming. But I can't put a Sidney Crosby, Lebron James, Mike Trout, or Tom Brady in the same conversion as whoever is the 'Gretzky' of gaming. Sorry. You might, but not me.

I understand where you're coming from, and honestly I have a rather difficult time understanding the appeal of eSports (I'd rather be playing than watching). If I think about it though, hockey, basketball, or football at the end of the day is also just a game (I'd also much rather play soccer than watch soccer). The top StarCraft II players can do over 300 actions per minute; the sheer mechanical and mental skill required to do what they do are insane. If I really break down the skillsets required to be at the top echelon at hockey versus a video game, they both require an ridiculous amount of dedication and skill, it just depends on what you value I suppose. I'm sure there's people in the eSports scene who don't understand the appreciation for being great a waving a stick around on ice.

Originally Posted by jammies

I find this depressing. Everything fun eventually gets monetized, professionalized, and turned into a competition. I'm waiting for the Porno World Cup of 2022 to roll around and give everyone a chance to analyze the play, stroke-by-stroke, only to realize even one's masturbation skills are third-rate and unworthy.

If there's a market for it and people want to watch, why not? Could be a million dollar idea, you can test the waters and let us know how it goes.

[Superfraggle]

https://www.tsn.ca/canucks-gm-bennin...levi-1.1097549

Didn't see this posted yet

[Royle9]

It's funny reading the speaking points towards what "e-sports" is to different people. Personally I think we've come a long way towards seeing huge growth in the "professional video game" player world, the investments are huge, you've got full blow professional organizations (Soccer, Football etc) investing into teams and rightfully so.

I personally played "professional" Counter Strike 1.6 for many years, I've traveled all over the world, lived in Korea for 6 months made a salary (mind you a fraction of what kids make today) all during my young 20's and so I can relate on a more personal to some of the statements made in this thread.

What's funny is it took a long time for me to admit to doing this as a job to most of my friends growing up. I've experienced things across the globe that most will never get a chance to do, for free while being treated like a celebrity and yet I still look down on the fact that I lost a lot of my "real life" friendships with friends I had grown up with for 3/4 of my life at that time.

It was tough to balance your life even back then, at any point you could be on a flight oversea's to do a promo event for a sponsor, or a tournament that we had qualified for etc. I never had the chance to really nail down dates to do things with my friends and they never understood why until much later in my life (now 34).

These kids now adays are competing for substantially more prize money, they are being paid salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars however they are also competing 10 out of 12 months of the year. More so than other other "sport" athlete mind you I too don't compare the 2 equally.

Its crazy to see how much the gaming industry as evolved, I wish it were this big when I was still relevant I'd be laughing and way further ahead than I am today making money playing video games.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by jammies

I find this depressing. Everything fun eventually gets monetized, professionalized, and turned into a competition. I'm waiting for the Porno World Cup of 2022 to roll around and give everyone a chance to analyze the play, stroke-by-stroke, only to realize even one's masturbation skills are third-rate and unworthy.

I dunno man, I think you've got just what it takes to turn pro.

[FlamesFanTrev]

Originally Posted by Samonadreau

I was fully expecting a few responses like this. I realize it's my 100% opinion and I don't have any gaming consoles so I'm completely biased but it seems ridiculous to me. Nothing wrong with gaming. But I can't put a Sidney Crosby, Lebron James, Mike Trout, or Tom Brady in the same conversion as whoever is the 'Gretzky' of gaming. Sorry. You might, but not me.

Wait till it's an Olympic sport! There will be a massive earthquake in the Mediterranean as a result of all the Greeks rolling over and over in their graves. Just like poker. Not a sport. Stop highlighting it in green on the TV listing.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by FlamesFanTrev

Wait till it's an Olympic sport! There will be a massive earthquake in the Mediterranean as a result of all the Greeks rolling over and over in their graves. Just like poker. Not a sport. Stop highlighting it in green on the TV listing.

What's the definition of a sport?

Are Archery and Target shooting sports?

Video Games takes body control and read and react skills so poker isn't a good comparable as that is a pure mind based activity instead of one involving
Coordination

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by FlamesFanTrev

Wait till it's an Olympic sport! There will be a massive earthquake in the Mediterranean as a result of all the Greeks rolling over and over in their graves. Just like poker. Not a sport. Stop highlighting it in green on the TV listing.

Poker and Video Games are very different. Video Games take physical skill, I would say that a better comparison is Car Racing.

[yourbestfriend]

I think the fact we're having the whole legitimacy of the esports conversation means that the disconnect between generations is still quite large. For obvious reasons most the 40+ year old demographic isn't going to care about esports and are probably more prone to not classifying it as a sport based on the fact that they've always viewed sports as a physical activity. That's fine, because that's not who the esports business is targeting anyways. The 40+ yaer old demographic isn't going to be around long enough or relevant for long enough by the time esports is coming into it's own. Just like any other sport they are targeting kids so they have fans for life. More over, they don't even need to target kids, they just need to show them there's an option for professional gaming. I would argue that as esports become more prominent, lucrative and viable, they will become a big risk for professional sports teams.

Classify "esports" however you want but that doesn't discount the fact it's already a billion dollar industry while still in the infancy of its life cycle. The future is exceptionally bright and lucrative. Leagues like the NHL, NBA and NFL would be dumb to ignore it, like most of their fans are. Fast forward 20-30years and I guarantee that esports leagues will be just as and if not more successful than their other professional sports counterparts.

[GioforPM]

Next Olympics is in Tokyo. If that doesn't scream eGames I don't know what does.

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Poker and Video Games are very different. Video Games take physical skill, I would say that a better comparison is Car Racing.

Except you don't crash and die if you miss the A button.

[Cactus Jack]

Yourbestfriend has a good take on it. I am a detractor of eSports but you can´t argue its popularity. I understand the reflexes required to play them but sitting on your coach or in a car to me will never be a sport. I´m not a 40-something but to me a sport has to be physical, and reflexes just do not cut it. That doesn´t mean it´s not a growing industry, it means I don´t like it, as I don´t like baseball, rugby and many other sports. It´s just a preference thing.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Poker and Video Games are very different. Video Games take physical skill, I would say that a better comparison is Car Racing.

Car racing requires some extreme physical attributes around strength and endurance. I'd say a better comparison is darts.

Still, e-sports are fundamentally different from traditional sports in some pretty important ways. In traditional sports, you can typically only compete at a high level if your overall fitness is exceptional, usually some combination of strength, dexterity, balance, cardiovascular health. You can have diabetes and be in the extreme risk zone for heart attacks and still compete in e-sports at a high level.

The other difference is in traditional sports we watch the people competing. They are what's interesting. In e-sports you're watching digital animation, not the competitor. Someone competing in e-sports at an elite level doesn't really look any different while they're playing than someone competing at a low level. In that way, they're more like chess.

[the-rasta-masta]

Race Car Drivers are pure athletes, they face some of the most extreme tolls on their bodies.

[Pellanor]

One of the coolest things about eSports, that you don't see in traditional sports, is the fan interaction. Many pros stream in their free time, so you can watch what's effectively pick-up games between them. They often offer commentary on why they're doing what they're doing, and have friendly trash talk between teams.


So much better than the "Get more pucks on the net", "Out work the opposition" interviews we see in hockey.

[Bandwagon Surfer]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I dunno man, I think you've got just what it takes to turn pro.

Must be impressive. Having been to porn competitions, I am absolutely confident that I do not have what it takes to turn pro. Utterly amazing what the human body can do.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Bandwagon Surfer

Must be impressive. Having been to porn competitions, I am absolutely confident that I do not have what it takes to turn pro. Utterly amazing what the human body can do.

Go on.

[Poe969]

Playing video games isn't a sport. It's playing video games. You can make an argument it is but then you could make the same argument for anything then. Just because you need good reflexes, doesn't mean it's a sport, you need good reflexes to flip a coin so does that make that a sport too?