EPTE-Sports is not necessarily spots, but is an accurate term to help the general public understand what E-Sports composes of
Firstly let us state that the reply I am making may be somewhat theoretically involved. The arguments against Cohen are not intended to show mistaken views of another, but to form a dialogue that may be continued into the future. While I agree that the term ‘E-sports’ is primarily used as a tool to explain competitive gaming to the uninitiated, I don’t agree that e-sports is not necessarily a sports.
Let us being by invoking what the use of the word ‘necessary’ may imply in this context. In order for something (x) to be necessarily something else (y), x must satisfy the conditions of y. An obvious example of this is that of the Bachelor. For William to be a bachelor, he must fulfill necessarily the conditions of being a bachelor, namely, being a unmarried, male adult. If William is a male adult, but married, he does not necessarily fulfill the conditions of being a bachelor. Similarly, if E-sports is necessarily a sport, as I wish to argue in this post, contra Cohen, then I must show that E-sports fulfills the necessary conditions of being a sport. The question for me then becomes
1. What are the conditions of something being a sport?
2. Do the E-sports group necessarily fit these conditions?
Now, we may go the basic route and look up the dictionary definition of the term Sport: An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others. This can either be in a professional format or within a casual environment. Upon this definition we can presumably argue then that those games usually understood within the context of E-sports are to be understood as sports (though this too may also rely on a semantic discussion on the notion of ‘physical exertion’) However this does not satisfy my own goals for this article, nor do I think Cohen would be satisfied with that form of argument. My goal then is to go through Cohen’s own article countering his argument, while trying to provide examples and arguments for my contention.
Before I begin to get in depth about the e-sports aspect of the article in particular, I want to pick up on one specific thing. Cohen begins their article by stating that
comparing e-sports to professional mainstream sports can be a poor perspective that ultimately narrows and shapes it to be something that it cannot feasibly become (but may be something even more)
I think can be quite true of many comparisons, but comparisons between competitive gaming (e-sports) and “traditional sports” can actually help us in encouraging development within areas of e-sports that my struggle. I think we can look at the current state of Starcraft 2 in particular, in which, to some extent, we have an over-saturation of events and ask, how do we maximize e-sports without incurring both player fatigue and viewer fatigue? This I can be worked out by comparing models of particular sporting codes with e-sports codes (FPS, RTS, ARTS etc), but that is a discussion for another time. The main point to get across here is that I think Cohen is to narrow in the scope of how he understands comparison. We may look at academia to show how comparisons don’t narrow scopes or specific relations, but open up broader categories of discussion.
Now, Cohen is not specifically saying that E-sports is not a sport, but that it is not necessarily a sport, and to some extent, makes the allusion that E-sports goes beyond traditional sports. Cohen presents three examples that show how E-sports may sufficiently be a sport, but is not necessarily a sport. The author argues that there are three levels which allow one to understand the subculture of E-sports, these being
Competitive Gaming: competitive gaming being without the spectators or much of a news media following. Essentially, it’s just the game, the players and the small community who were active or involved in the organizing of competitions. As we step further out into the second-level, we start introducing the large following of communities such as Team Liquid, the sub-reddits as well as large-scale events to connect further these online communities into a gaming expo-like setting.
This is E-Sports. E-Sports is a spectacle to dress and curtain the core game and competition. The atmosphere is what is the most appealing for events such as IGN’s Pro League, North-American Star League finals and Major League Gaming which helps add flair and life to something that occurs within computer systems. The roaring fans and the enthusiastic and excited commentators are areas that help emphasize and improve the excitement of what goes in the game. These elements are found within mainstream sports and are why we title competitive gaming as E-Sports.
E-sports Population Activity is an overview of how popular, active and worthwhile is E-Sports for these companies. It takes into account of the core of the game, its active teams and progamers, leagues and events as well as growth of community websites. I titled EPA as a global measurement to help identify just how popular and strong this subcultures growth is. For some games such as Tribes: Ascend and Street Fighter x Tekken, their EPA has been greatly reduced despite numerous attempts at trying to improve it (this could be for a variety of issues). Team Fortress 2, also a popular competitive game, is not as popularly viewed as Counter-Strike for other reasons. Their EPA is low and thus perhaps why companies aim to not acknowledge, improve or work towards changing that (because it isn’t realistically feasible for the company’s resources to devote towards or maybe because the company sees other more profitable ways to take advantage of their video-game product).
There isn’t much to disagree with these definitions, or the way in which they are used to describe the culture of e-sports and they basically mimic the structures of the traditional sporting arena. But there may be some points of contention that can be addressed. In terms of competitive gaming this, as Cohen says really forms the core of any gaming community. Those players who seek to establish a small grass roots level of competition. However, it should also be noted that grass roots competitions are the lifeblood of any professional gaming league. Millions of dollars is spent on little leagues, Junior Rugby, Cricket, Basketball and Soccer to encourage boys and girls to take up these sports. A question that the e-sports community needs to address, and one that I hope to address later in this blog series is how does the community respond to grass roots endeavors?
Furthermore Cohen states that E-sports itself (apart from competitive gaming) can be understood in terms of the glitz and glamor, the ability to show off the core gaming community. It is the internet that allows for this aspect of the e-sports community to take off, it is forums such as teamliquid.net, reddit and twitter which fuel the growth of e-sport. I don’t disagree with that statement, I think it is fundamentally true that without the internet and without the use of social media, e-sports would not have grown to the place it is today. What I am skeptical about is that Cohen thinks that the spectacle of e-sports is why we title competitive gaming as e-sports. I don’t think this is correct, I think Cohen has neglected the similarities between competitive gaming groups and grass roots sporting communities.
The third level takes on an extremely complex issue, but an important one that should be addressed and that is the interaction of gaming companies within E-sports. I won’t deal with this specific aspects here but of the complex and intertwining issues that need to be addressed within it, I will however say that I think the EPA measurement that Cohen introduces is a good way to begin such a process.
Let us move on to the final aspect. If both E-sports and traditional sports follow this similar structure, the question is why isn’t e-sports a sports?
According to Cohen
Because the game changes. The core game mechanics improve, change, and are biased towards one side or another….. These varied factors help keep the game fresh, new and entertaining. It displays unlimited possibilities that surpass that of sports on a basic ruled level.
The above statement is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the piece. Cohen argues that E-sports aren’t sports because of the evolution of the games themselves. But I wonder whether Cohen falls into the trap they warned us of at the start of the article. I think at this point Cohen’s definition of sport has become so narrow that it can’t transcend its own being. Sport, because of what we think it is, cannot ever transcend into something else. The discourse on what a sport is, cannot be challenged if we accept Armchair’s point here, I say we should disregard this point and go back to the point on comparative analysis. This point was that such analyzes are useful as long as they don’t attempt to constrain us in any way.
Furthermore, I don’t think the points made by Cohen about E-sports necessarily deter it from being labeled a sport. They write
The core game mechanics improve, change, and are biased towards one side or another
Yes this is a completely agreeable statement, but it neglects the fact that the core mechanics of sports change all the time. If we watch Football, Soccer, Cricket, Basketball or Tennis games from 50 years ago we will see a different style of play, a different mechanic of how to approach strategy and etc. I may here be confused by the way Cohen uses the term mechanic (I understand it as basically the tools of the trade). Let us take an example.
Cohen writes
In StarCraft, you have three asymmetrical races that have their pros and cons, in ARTS games such as DotA, you have a multitude of heroes that interact with one another differently. For FPS games, a variety of guns also means countless approaches towards taking down your opponent.
As such, I think Cohen is using the term in the way I understand it, that is as a tool or the ‘means of production’ of the game. Now if we take this understand we can also apply it to traditional sporting games as well. In Australia, where the game of cricket is extremely popular, the ‘means of production’ of a Cricket game are a bat, a leather ball, and a cricket pitch. If you ever watch a cricket match you’ll notice the commentators talking a lot about the pitch or the type of cricket bat that the player is using. How he uses such tools in the game. Cricket pitches in Australia are extremely different to those in India, Sri Lanka and the West Indies for various reasons and they change according to weather and maintenance. Game Patches, Hot fixes and alike all work the same way as Cricket pitches or football fields. They are the place which the game takes place and whoever understands the patch, pitch or field better also has a better chance at winning. We can understand the developers as the people who look after the patch, pitch or field. I’m deeply skeptical of the assumption that Blizzard tries to influence game play, I think this may be false. I’d rather like to say that they try to do something to the ‘field’ that will increase the chances of something else happening. Others have talked about ‘changing rules’ and such, but I think the discussion on mechanics is much clearer by talking about tools in the way I have done above.
Finally
Cohen writes
The reality is that E-Sports will always be a “you’re either in or you’re out” sort of pond and because most current adults have grown being out of video-games or not as competitively involved with it, most are definitely out. However, as the digital age encompasses more generations and old values start to shrink, the accessibility and acceptance of video-games and potentially E-Sports is bound to expand.
Most sports tend to be “you’re either in or you’re out” types of affairs. Sports are also deeply rooted in nationalistic tendencies, when a country tends to do well in a sport that sport would have a certain following within that country. Cricket of course is a good example in Australia, but so is Soccer. Until the 2006 Soccer World Cup in Germany, the sport was hardly mentioned in the media, was not a big sport at grass roots, but then Australia suddenly started doing reasonably well and now , 7 years on, we have a reinvigorated A-League and a well supported Soccer team. When mOOnGLaDe, the Australian Starcraft player, when to the WCS in Shanghai we actually saw a couple of articles in national newspapers about E-sports, even though he didn’t win, there was something about having an Australian participate which made some (not many) people look up.
I want to end this on a positive note. I think I have successful shown contra Cohen’s arguments that E-sports can be considered a sport, I think it is wrong to understand ‘mainstream’ sports as the definition of sports, Sports come and go, they evolve and die out. The definition of sports should always be in a state of flux trying to determine itself. Perhaps the next stage in this determination is the advent of E-sports, perhaps E-sports has already reached its Nadir. I want to mirror something that Cohen did say that, E-sports has the potential to expand beyond limits that anyone thought imaginable. But we need to do this as a community, we need to expand grass roots exposure and show Adults and kids alike that video games are cool and they are a sport.
