EPTThe Drive to Continue - The Competitive Spirit and My Assumptions on the Champions' Prowess
When one visualizes a champion of Brood War, StarCraft II, or truly any eSport that currently exists, they are presented with concepts of insane time dedication, a competitive mindset, and the acceptance of mistakes, succeeded by improvement. One of these, in particular, is a great topic of interest to me. Namely the fulfillment of practice hours, and even extraneous time spent in addition to this.
What I am attempting to evalute Here is What drives a player to play an eSport for such an inordinate amount of hours, and strive for a single goal, exploring every path to do so. Is it their core, unwavering love for the game they play? Is it the concept of competition and idolization? The money?
While this is likely varying for many players, I find the answer most likely the second one. Look at an adored, champion player such as
IdrA.He has come out several times explaining that his love for what he does is not drawn from direct enjoyment of StarCraft II's gameplay--it is rooted in a drive to compete at a professional level.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BflI3.jpg)
Amongst Koreans, their attitude seems similar, excluding a significant dislike for the game. Competition appears to be the main driving force in their progression within the game. I assume this due to their standings in tournaments, and the many rumours as to their extreme practice regiment.
I propose a speculation. Several legends in Brood War, namely players such as
sAviOr and Luxury, were caught fixing matches. Can we not conclude, then, that if such players decided to match fix, that they had money as a major driving concept in why they played at such a high level? Of course, they must have had a major drive to be idolized and to compete, however, money must be a major factor if they decide to ruin the integrity of competition by involving themselves in match fixing.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aBf1o.jpg)
The following is another speculation. It is somewhat uninformed, so do not despise me for it; I shall atempt to be as safe as possible in stating it.
It is no secret that a major percentage of foreigner players do not perform extremely well in high level tournaments. Can we then draw the conclusion that their performance is affected by the reason they attempt to compete? It may be the money, however this is somewhat unlikely as a foreigner most likely needs to be a very high level player that can compete with a large percentage of koreans to earn a decent sallary. Possibly, then, many foreigners may simply thoroughly enjoy the gameplay of StarCraft II, and are not necessarily solely motivated by a drive to compete.
So, dear TL readers, what exactly are your opinions on what drives specific players to compete in this wonderful game? What makes them wish to savour every minute, remove every intrusion, and save every second of time to improve more and more at this competition?
