Gaming, why so serious?

With a small amount of reflection time I had a think about the last year. There have been some amazing benchmarks in gaming. From a competitive perspective utilizing the Staples centre for a gaming championship was great. There have been some very memorable tournaments and winners. The focus is more often than not on the growth of competitive gaming and how to facilitate this. Stream numbers, tournament admittance numbers and increasing prize pools highlight this ‘growth’. Often drawing the short end of the stick are the players themselves. On paper they have the best job a gamer could ask for; they get paid to play video games. While the life of a pro gamer is not the hardest job in the world it is wrought with pitfalls and uncertainty. There is so little actual personal and professional development of the players that there is still so much more to come from them. I have outlined some stages of competitive development to highlight the progression path one can take. Players themselves can see where they would appear to line up while casuals can also place their position and realize how much those in full time gaming have to do in order to not just play but compete and excel too.

Learn to play

We all start gaming when we are young because it is entertaining, it is enjoyable and it can be quite sociable. Depending on our current age we will have been brought up on a gaming platform and developed an affinity with certain genres. There is so much choice now that people are not left wanting for different types of games. Competitive gaming is a far cry from here. We play with family and friends. Self-learning and reinforcement training through the game reward us for certain actions which make us aware of what the game ‘requires’ us to do to progress.

Train to play

At this point we are becoming more proficient at a game and start spending more time at a particular game or genre. An aptitude for a particular type of game lends itself to an increased motivation and drive to play. Spending more time on the game creates increased awareness of the game, muscle memory performing actions, a quicker identification of combinations, correlations and strategies. Most of the time spent is in the practice area or online on an online ranked ladder system. Single versus the AI does not cut it anymore and the unpredictability of a human opponent in straight up match fosters large advancements in knowledge. Some people might team up or create clans and enter single/team clan wars as they taste their first bit of competition. The average person in the category might be the high school child that plays after school and on weekends.

Learn to compete

This is the period where we are becoming confident in ourselves and we feel that we have a good grasp of the basics. Similarly we can become over confident due to our lack of understanding of the game. Increasing ones player pool always opens up a person’s perceived self-ability as the more and more new opponents are faced. Players' once niche opponent pool increases and he/she can truly pit their skills against others. This will separate the casual players vs someone that wishes to invest into the game. There have been many articles written about what route a person takes to achieve this goal. Whether it is through ‘winning at all costs’ or by perfecting many facets of the game for a balanced and rounded skill base, the end result is usually the same, to win more games. Players will confront new styles, adapt and learn to combat these previously unknown strategies. The ability to improve and see positive changes is rewarding with obvious increases in skill as the player moves from beginner, to average player, to above average. When the player starts to take on better players they are often tested and without that innate ‘natural talent’ (ability to get better easier because of a natural predisposition to the task) they need to put in the hours necessary to improve. How do players learn to compete and where do they get their information from? For the most part sports people will have heroes that they admire and mimic. They are usually high level professional athletes that have been through the mill of childhood academies, semi pro contracts right through to the pro level. Because gaming is still quite new the original pioneers of a genre may not have been the epitome of professionalism. Optimization of mechanics, biomechanics and posture can also change as players begin to ‘take it more seriously’. This is obviously a positive change and can correlate with longer term benefits. Not everyone will actively engage in these changes and can harbour mechanical flaws throughout their career without changing because ‘that’s how they got to where they are now’.

A recent news post about the possibility of gaming being added to the Olympics featured the comments of John Bain (Axiom Manager) who cited chess as being an example of a recognized sport. The long standing debate as to can gaming be considered a sport and what levels of physical exertion are pre-requisites for entry into this club called ‘sport’ over the terms ‘hobby’, ‘game’ or ‘activity’. The ulterior motive for not admission may stem from the opening of the floodgates that would result from every game searching for individual recognition and the esteem associated from being awarded an event within the Olympics. On the positive side entry would accelerate the need for a player trade union along with a more professional approach from players, game companies and teams. Overall the increase in media coverage and subsequent increase in player base would be worth it alone for the effort put in by the gaming lobbyists.

Photo Credit @aceresport

Train to compete

With some luck and skill a player can be taken on by a team or even as a team-less player one can ply their trade and work to impress. What does ‘train to compete’ mean? How does a player become competitive? When a player is handed a professional contract, does this elicit a change in his/her behaviour? More often than not a person will continue in their normal habits and routine. Sometimes the resulting increase in motivation can cause the person to increase work rate but usually only within the confines of what they already do (They will not use said increase in motivation to incorporate many new things). This is the position that most ‘professionals’ or aspiring professionals find themselves in right now. Laying down the foundations takes time and with the pressure of always having to be tournament ready almost all year round the personal and professional investment is negligible. The support is just not there when compared to mainstream sports. The infrastructure of the gaming teams does not lend itself to improving this either. The ‘teams’ are not equipped to provide the services needed for investing in the improvement of the players. Having a situation where players have to coach and manage themselves may seem like a good idea but without the imparting of required knowledge they can often communally bask in poor habits. The success of current teams such as Acer and Coach Cella give us a glimpse of what a team could be with the correct funding and/or foresight. We have a situation where the players are not only provided with a team house but with a translator, manager and coach. They are highly skilled, professional and more importantly seem relaxed as they portray the image of a cohesive team

ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ‎ Photo Credit @razer ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ‎

Train to excel

Once we have established a competitive mind-set, meaning that we have prioritized variables (family, work, school, significant other, and friends) depending on their relevance to success or life goals, we can start working on improving. It is obviously strange to say that your gaming profession should be prioritized ahead of things like family and friends but it is dependent on the situation. Trivial aspects should not interfere with one’s career but the obvious important events have a better chance of overriding what should be the gamers first priority of training. An athletes foundation is based on his supporting structures which are family, friends and religion (not always). These pillars should support his career without draining time and energy from it but the onus is on the player to identify where his time requirements lie and determine how much work he/she is willing to put into success.

This improvement is not even necessarily isolated to the game itself but will encompass lifestyle as well ones approach to the profession. A professional approach is entirely different to ‘taking it seriously’. It helps players when they have a good support network behind them. There are players that ask for and require quite a lot of support for logistical aspects in and out of the game. It can alleviate pressures of the game and allow them to focus more on competing. There is a link between higher level winning athletes and support networks. These networks provide the player with emotional, intellectual, spiritual, informational, logistical as well as technical support. With the infrastructure available to gaming teams it can be hard to fulfil each of these but the differences between team games (League, Dota) and individual games (Starcraft) can be extremely polarizing.
While the climate is different, these gamers will have to work together or within their support network to control the external variables that contribute to success such as diet, exercise, planning, technical preparation, mental preparation and consistency. Many of these are often overlooked but are trainable incremental variables that have been linked to competitive success. Even with all the perfect information it takes incredible fortitude to be able to manage these variables every day to maximize efficiency.

Excel

It is at this stage where a person has achieved some success through practice of their established routine and practice. A player should be at a physical and mental apex with a firm grasp on what it means to be competitive. The real aim now is to maintain this level of play while being attentive to his/her needs. The body is extremely capable of adapting to stressors so much so that over time the same exercise or training that once yielded success can result in stagnation or even declining progression.

Photo Credit: guardian.co.uk

There are very few cases of players that have a long life cycle within gaming with a purely competitive playing mind-set. Pro sports teams and their players work together to train efficiently with the main goal of being as competitive as possible for an event/season or tournament. With the increase of prize pools and sponsoring within gaming it will become more and more desirable to remain within competitive gaming and as a result a gamer’s career may increase beyond the short few years that they have currently. Coaching with an emphasis on periodization will provide such a boon to the lifespan of players with secondary benefits to motivation, alleviation of injuries and burnout. Players are indeed the stars of the show and it should be understood that they also need help to improve and progress. Teams and players themselves should protect their investment, think and live healthy, actively rest and take care of your body when injured.

If you have any questions please find me on twitter @es_performance

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