I'm interested in everything to do with play and games, as well as passionate subcultures, so when I heard the eSports World Cup was suddenly relocating from Saudi Arabia (I believe it was created there, and Qiddiya – city of play – branding appears all around) to Paris, I had to take a look at what was going on.
From what I hear, one of the particularities of the event is that it features many of the most played competitive games, from first person shooters (FPS), to fighting games, MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, like League of Legends), even ones published by competitors that don't tend to appear in the same event – and chess; to promote chess.com one might presume (Magnus Carlsen will be playing, and it's streaming live for free from 11th to 15th August).
The €20 ticket price also made it fairly easy to choose going. It is actually many competitive gaming events over the course of six weeks, which also made me wonder who they called and how much it might have cost them to suddenly relocate the event to the largest event hall in Paris for a whole six weeks, even though French people take holidays, I can't imagine the Parc des Expositions de la Porte de Versailles was sitting empty all summer waiting for them to call. I joked that Saudi Arabia might have thrown in some oil deal or added a couple of extra Mirage fighter jets to an order to secure the venue.
I've been slowly learning more about League of Legends, as one of the most followed competitive games, that fills stadiums, and that has become a streaming show sensation with the popular Arcane animated series on Netflix (it's excellent, and you don't need to know anything about the video game). While intimidating in terms of complexity, it seemed like a game I could follow with regards to its roots.
I played a lot of RTS (real time strategy) games way back when, even though I was never the best at them, I loved Age of Empires, Command & Conquer, Cossacks, Warcraft II, III, and Starcraft 1/2. I even got into occasionally watching competitive Starcraft 2. I understood how the game played, and appreciated the level of skill, and unbelievable actions per minute (APM) speed the top players reached.
Just for a quick summary; Warcraft III offered the ability for players to create custom maps and game rules, which people did, and one of them was an arena with two teams squaring off. That was called DOTA (Defence of the Ancients), and the 5v5 team multiplayer online battle arena was born officially with DOTA2. Then Riot Games took that recipe and made it into the sensation that League of Legends still is today.
I had watched a couple of videos going over the main rules, the play arena / map, and roles of the five teammates. I knew there were over 170 different hero characters to choose from, each with their own specialties and special powers, which was and still is one of barriers to appreciate watching competitive gamers. The other barrier I could foresee was that I'd watched a couple of videos where the battle rages, the commentators (casters, in esports lingo) and fans are going wild, and those moments just look like a confusing colorful kaleidoscope of special effects on the screen.
Thankfully most moments aren't like that over the course of the roughly 30 minutes play time for a round, and the eSports World Cup was set as a best of three.
The two winning teams I saw and who faced off in the semi-finals the following day are worth mentioning:
- T1, jointly owned and operated by South Korea Telecom and Comcast Spectacor, and featuring Faker, the best player in the world and a proper celebrity in South Korea. He had many fans who had traveled from far away to cheer for him.
- Karmin Corp, the only French team in the competition, co-founded and co-owned by popular French streamer, Kamet0 (it was created as Kameto Corp). They had home team advantage, and they are known for fostering a loud and cheery army of fans, inspired by football supporter associations.
In the post I wrote yesterday about appreciating football, I mentioned that anything can happen in an exciting way, and it can probably be extended to all spectator sports, or at least to sSports and League of Legends. The other point about the enjoyment of watching people extremely skilled at something you might have tried a few times or even practice regularly, like kicking a ball or playing video games, can be enticing.
It's often called "competence porn" as coined by screenwriter John Waters in reference to the enjoyment of watching people particularly skilled at whatever it is they do, and dramatised in TV series and movies like Moneyball, Ocean's Eleven, The Pitt, and I think competitive sports athletes as well.
When it comes to League of Legends, and any other complex sport or game, it takes knowing how it's played to really appreciate. I knew I'd be a fish out of water at the eSports World Cup and that was part of the draw for me too. I knew just enough to begin appreciating, just about enough to follow most of the game, and it made me want to learn more. Though to be honest, it also went over my head enough that I blinked a few times and my brain just stopped registering during the most heated moments of the games.
It was fun to experience the different arenas, fans cheering, fast-talking commentators (thanks to them, I was able to generally follow what was going on), and overall atmosphere.
The sheer difference in numbers and money earned by players is impressive. The eSports World Cup boasted $70 Million in prize money across all games in the competition, and $2 Million for League of Legends. Definitely nothing to sneer at, large mounts of money.
However, compared with just a quick average from the UK Premier League, the average pro football player will be earning about £4 Million per year, and combining the wages bill across the 20 clubs in the UK Premier League represents roughly £2.25 billion.
Still, eSports is beginning to attract large crowds who are willing to 100 Euros on team jerseys, pretty much the same high prices as other sports jerseys. While the number of fans is not as high as in football, their energy and enthusiasm from the crowd seems comparable.
