EPTLet’s reflect for a moment on what we all wanted to be as kids. My 4-year old self dreamt about the day he’d be a famous paleontologist, discovering new fossils all the time, and perhaps even genetically engineering birds into dinosaurs. Later as my thoughts drifted towards space, I saw myself as someone being able to prove the existence of antimatter. Regardless of what I was going to be, I knew what I wanted to be: successful.
Success is something we all strive for, and it’s not something that comes without cost. If someone wants to become the greatest basketball player in the world, he must dedicate countless hours to not only perfecting his craft, but also training his body to be in best possible shape. In fact, any athlete can attest to the many hours required to play at such high levels. When I was training as a martial artist, I spent close to 3 hours a day, 4 days a week at classes. And I wasn’t the hardest worker either– several of my friends went to lift weights after class, and also jogged miles on off days. While the results are often spectacular, there is a certain amount of sacrifice always required.
This doesn’t end at athletics. Successful academics will tell you all about their premature greying, hours of straining to read texts, crying about calc proofs, the list goes on. Behind every major scientific advancement lies years of failure. Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter says it best, “Trying to figure out how something works on that deep level, the first ninety-nine explanations you come up with are wrong. The hundredth is right. So you have to learn how to admit you’re wrong, over and over and over again. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s so hard that most people can’t do true science. Always questioning yourself, always taking another look at things you’ve always taken for granted,” (Yudkowsky, chapter 7). There are countless words of inspiration for people wanting to achieve success that rely on telling them how often they will fail, and how much time it will take before success comes.
It seems to me, inherent in the nature of success, there is also the nature of addiction. It is never openly admitted, like the cousin still stuck in 4chanland at family reunions. To put it simply, in order to endure such failure and so much of it, a person must have some deep attachment to what it is they eventually succeed at. In short, they must have passion for their chosen field, whether it be academics or athletics, music or math.
Enter gaming. Everyone loves to hate on people who spend a decent amount of time on video games. The stereotype of the ‘gamer nerd’ is etched into our brains with characters like FPS Doug and all the sensational World of Warcraft neglect stories that follow this kind of format. They further enforce the notion that gamers have no sense of social aptitude, nor can they reliably take care of themselves in the throes of their addictions. Passion is hardly a term the general population would apply to people who game.
Much of this archetype is (shockingly) false. However, articles about how awesome it is to be a pro-gamer don’t sell nearly as well as articles that depict World of Warcraft players as terrible people. You can read all about SlayerS_BoxeR sometime– a guy who against all odds has made quite the comfortable living playing the game he loved and was immortalized for it. And the amount of time pros spend on gaming is a level of training that casual gamers like myself cannot begin to imagine. Day9 had an entire episode about his life in gaming, in part of which he describes his training for the Pan-Am World Cyber games; “I trained harder for that [the 2007 Pan-Am World Cyber Games tournament], than I ever had for anything in my life– in that period for about a month [between school and summer research], I would wake up at 10am. I would play from 10 to noon, then take a break for lunch. I would play from 1 to 6pm, then take a break for dinner. Play from 7pm to 3 in the morning, and then wake up the next day at 10am again and just repeat,” (Plott, 1:28:40-1:29:05).
But the real interesting question is when does a passion cross the line from be successful to being addictive? Jos De Putter, director of a documentary called Beyond the Game, which depicts the life of two international e-sports stars as they prepare for the tournament of their lives, said in an interview, “[responding to the host's comments about kids sitting in front of computer screens all day] ,”Those things you mentioned are a part of it. Look, just like with chess. There are a lot of kids who want to be Gary Kasparov. Most of them don’t get that far, some go crazy for sure, But because it’s somewhat accepted with chess, nobody asks Gary Kasparov if he’s addicted to chess. With Manuel, that’s a whole other story,” (de Putter, 6:25-6:40).
To me, the only thing that represents the difference between players like Manuel Schenkhuizen, Gary Kasparov, and Michael Jordan is social acceptance of their chosen path. Such acceptance allows for players to transition from the basement or park life, to the big stage. But if such differentiations are social constructions, why are we as gamers so afraid to step in the limelight?
This isn’t nearly as true as it once was, as this article in the WSJ mentions, “In the U.S., fervor for “Starcraft II” is spilling into public view for the first time, as many players now prefer to watch the pros,” (Efrati, WSJ). While the article is problematic in several ways, it begins to present gaming as a passion that one can have success with.
Unless we all just happen to be addicted.
