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Scott's Approved eSports Thread
Seems like the Fighting Game Collusion thread has been used for such sports until now. I got a lot of such topics to discuss. Also, I don't like the word eSports, so I made a new thread.
Item 1 - Hearthstone World Championship. The dude who won was playing my absolute favorite card in the entire game.
BABBLING BOOOOOOK!!!!!!
I watched almost the whole thing, and I saw him get super super lucky with this card at least three times in the finals and semi-finals. FYI, this is a tiny 1 cost 1/1 minion card, but when you play it, it puts a random mage spell in your hand. It gave him the perfect spell at least three times. Also, the luck of Ragnaros the Firelord went his way numerous times.
It's very entertaining to watch, and all the players were very good. However, it is still hard to say the game isn't very very heavily based on luck. Really, that's all that separated this guy from the second place player, Dr. Hippi, who had amazing hair.
I was glad to see that the very douchey and arrogant kid Amnesiac, didn't win. Also, I was sad to see him lose, too. He was a bit of a loveable asshole.
Also, I picked a player at random in Blizzard's free pack giveaway thing. I picked Hamster, and he ended up earning me 3 free packs. Thanks Hamster! He seemed like a nice kid.
Disappointed no women playing, and no older people. I think it's because being pro at Hearthstone is more about grinding than skill, and women and adults are rarely stupid enough to spend so much of their time playing this game. It was almost entirely teenagers and college kids who have nothing better to do.
Item 2 - Blizzard is starting a league, beginning with Overwatch. Most importantly they are going to do what we said, and have teams based in cities. I might not play Overwatch, but I will buy season fucking tickets (if there is such a thing) to root for the New York whatever their name ends up being. Hopefully they are cheaper than Rangers tix, so I can afford it.
Item 3 - LoL had an event where they took the top ranked ladder players in North America and had them try out against pros to see if they could become pros themselves. Sort of like an NFL combine/draft situation. The #1 player at the event was revealed to be an Internet scumbag, and was thus disqualified from going pro. OMG this is amazing. In this aspect they are actually way ahead of the established sports leagues. Plenty of disgusting human beings are playing MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, but all of them would be banned from playing LoL professionally, regardless of skill level.
It's nice to have some confidence that if you buy someone's jersey and root for them, they aren't likely to turn out to be the next Michael Vick or Josh Brown,
http://www.riftherald.com/competitive/2016/11/7/13550948/tarzaned-na-scouting-grounds-toxicity-rejection
Item 1 - Hearthstone World Championship. The dude who won was playing my absolute favorite card in the entire game.
BABBLING BOOOOOOK!!!!!!
I watched almost the whole thing, and I saw him get super super lucky with this card at least three times in the finals and semi-finals. FYI, this is a tiny 1 cost 1/1 minion card, but when you play it, it puts a random mage spell in your hand. It gave him the perfect spell at least three times. Also, the luck of Ragnaros the Firelord went his way numerous times.
It's very entertaining to watch, and all the players were very good. However, it is still hard to say the game isn't very very heavily based on luck. Really, that's all that separated this guy from the second place player, Dr. Hippi, who had amazing hair.
I was glad to see that the very douchey and arrogant kid Amnesiac, didn't win. Also, I was sad to see him lose, too. He was a bit of a loveable asshole.
Also, I picked a player at random in Blizzard's free pack giveaway thing. I picked Hamster, and he ended up earning me 3 free packs. Thanks Hamster! He seemed like a nice kid.
Disappointed no women playing, and no older people. I think it's because being pro at Hearthstone is more about grinding than skill, and women and adults are rarely stupid enough to spend so much of their time playing this game. It was almost entirely teenagers and college kids who have nothing better to do.
Item 2 - Blizzard is starting a league, beginning with Overwatch. Most importantly they are going to do what we said, and have teams based in cities. I might not play Overwatch, but I will buy season fucking tickets (if there is such a thing) to root for the New York whatever their name ends up being. Hopefully they are cheaper than Rangers tix, so I can afford it.
Item 3 - LoL had an event where they took the top ranked ladder players in North America and had them try out against pros to see if they could become pros themselves. Sort of like an NFL combine/draft situation. The #1 player at the event was revealed to be an Internet scumbag, and was thus disqualified from going pro. OMG this is amazing. In this aspect they are actually way ahead of the established sports leagues. Plenty of disgusting human beings are playing MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, but all of them would be banned from playing LoL professionally, regardless of skill level.
It's nice to have some confidence that if you buy someone's jersey and root for them, they aren't likely to turn out to be the next Michael Vick or Josh Brown,
http://www.riftherald.com/competitive/2016/11/7/13550948/tarzaned-na-scouting-grounds-toxicity-rejection
Post edited by Andrew on
Comments
Like, hey, that's not a sport, it's an eSport.
Motorsports are already well respected, so giving them a separate name doesn't really hurt them. Although there are still quite a few people who try to argue they aren't sports, but it has nothing to do with the fact that they have the name "motorsport."
More people watch the LoL World Championship than watch the Monaco Grand Prix, but you'll only see one of them mentioned on the sports pages.
If we get people to just call eSports sports, then that will help give them mainstream legitimacy. Then we can call them whatever we want after that.
For example, you'll turn on the radio in NYC to say 880AM. They'll have these short blurbs like "Giants Win, Rangers Win, Knicks are going to lose tomorrow. And now the weather." I want it to say "Giants Win, Team Liquid Loses, Rangers Win, and now the traffic report."
If a NYC pro sports team wins a championship they get invited to the White House, the Empire State Building lights up with their colors, they get a parade, they are mentioned in every news broadcast, there are celebratory shirts and hats for sale the day afterwards, etc.
If a New Yorker won in Street Fighter at EVO, they wouldn't even get the benefit of complementary meals from restaurant owners that recognize them.
- what thing is moving
- what is providing the power to move the thing
- what is guiding the movement of the thing
Thankfully this is also able to include board games like Chess and Go into the definitions of different kinds of sports.
Normal athletic sports (what we normally consider sports) fall into move the body and use the body to move the thing:
Moving - the human body
Power - human muscles
Guidance - human brains are guiding the action
Moving - human body and an object (ball, javelin, hammer, shuttlecock, hackysack, etc)
Power - human muscles
Guidance - human brains
Next broad group can be described as "vehicle" sports:
Most track and road cycling, speedskating, cross country skiing, etc:
Moving - human and vehicle
Power - human muscles
Guidance - human brain
Equestrian:
Moving - a human and vehicle (horse)
Power - horse muscles
Guidance - a combination of human brains and horse brains
Motorsports with driver IN the vehicle (cars, powerboats, planes):
Moving - vehicle
Power - internal combustion engine (or electric motor)
Guidance - human brains (plus computer brains in some cases)
Motorsports with driver RIDING the vehicle (including motorcycle racing, freestyle motorcross, snowmobile, jetski, etc). With these, the human body, weight transfer, have more of an impact on the movement of the vehicle than turning a wheel or pushing a pedal:
Moving - human and vehicle
Power - engine plus human muscles
Guidance - human brains
Maybe it's no accident that car racing and equestrian are two sports where women compete alongside men?
Vehicle sport that are powered "environmentally":
Downhill (some skiing, some mountain biking, some skateboard, bobsled):
Moving - human and vehicle
Power - gravity plus human muscle
Guidance - human brains
Surfing and kayak/canoe slalom:
Moving - human and vehicle
Power - human and water (wave or water flowing down river)
Guidance - human brain
Sailing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, gliding, paragliding:
Moving - human and vehicle
Power - wind/aircurrents
Guidance - human brain
Ballooning:
Moving - human and vehicle
Power - propane burner plus wind
Guidance - human brain
Also there are "gravity/falling" sports such as diving, skydiving, etc:
Moving - human body
Power - gravity plus human muscles
Guidance - human brain
Next broad group are "shooting" sports.
Firearms:
Moving - bullet
Power - gunpowder or compressed air and human muscles (holding and controlling the aim)
Guidance - human brains
Archery:
Moving - arrow
Power - human muscles
Guidance - human brains
Next are remote control sports (RC racing, battle bots, drone racing):
Moving - non-human carrying vehicle
Power - electric or internal combustion motor
Guidance - human brains (sometimes with computer help)
Non physical sports/games!
Board games (keeping this very broad):
Moving - inanimate objects
Power - not important
Guidance - human brains
Esports:
Moving - abstract representations of data
Power - electricity
Guidance - human and computer brains
Non-human sports!
Animals (Greyhound racing, bear baiting, dog agility):
Moving - animals
Power - animal muscles
Guidance - animal brains (though sometimes with partial human direction)
Robots (RoboRace, robot football, DARPA competitions):
Moving - robots or autonomous vehicles
Power - internal combustion of electric motors
Guidance - computer brains
Some sports mix these, but all the different categories can be differentiated by a change in one of the three factors.
For example, I consider tennis and motor sport to be extremely similar. They both test human endurance, reaction times, dexterity, and precision. The main difference is that there is an extra human brain test in racing with regards to engineering the cars themselves. In tennis the engineer of the tennis racket matters, but not very much at all. Basically zero. I can't think of anyone who has won at tennis due to having better equipment. People win at racing with better cards every day.
I think the main thing you are failing to recognize is that some video games are sports, and some are just games. Street Fighter has a manual dexterity component. You have to move your hands quickly and precisely. Civilization VI, not so much. Your warriors don't do extra damage if you click faster.
Do they?