What is your opinion on the growing eSport scene?

ConcernedHobbit

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We saw Katowice 2015 with a million people watching the CS:GO finals and many more watching the League of Legends games.

The eSport scene is growing rapidly with about 600,000 new CSGO players between the last major and this one. It's on TV, it's in magazines and it's on advertisements. Norway's national TV channel has their own tournament and the Finnish equivalent of BBC broadcasts LAN tournaments.

Is it good? Is it bad? Is it ruining your favourite games?

Discuss below!
 
I think it is a good thing seeing that people are now tuning in to watch people play game competitively. It can also help casual gamers to learn a trick or two when they play these games. I have watched a couple World of tank streams that was tournaments.
 
I think it's a good thing. If any other sport can have televised tournaments (yes even STARCRAFT) then any other game deserves the shot right along side them. And I like watching livestreams of the people who are on the top and getting an idea how they handle how they play. It's no different then watching videos in a study room for XXX sport to brush up on how to win.

And I hope it continues to grow until it can spread far and wide and stop being a niche corner.
 
Great for the scene of course. Gives good exposure to the game, especially since really good players who dedicate lots of time to the game might even go pro and make lots of money!
 
I think its great for the gaming community. It gives some "validity" to gaming and creates a larger and more inclusive community I think. LCS is obviously the prime example, but even smaller tournaments for games like Hearthstone and World of Warcraft PVP help the success of those games. What the esport scene also does is put a very public eye onto what imbalances in the game that needs to be addressed. If one OP champ/comp/cards are dominating, then that puts pressure on the game developers to make the necessary changes.
 
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Never thought about it like that, Jamal. That is very true; it also helps with balancing issues. Because if someone gets the same char over and over and rolls everything in sight, the devs WILL change the balance if they want their game to succeed.
 
The scene is indeed growing really fast, and I think its great. It makes gaming industry grow even more, as the tournament games might even get shown on TV. Games that are competitive are often also great when played casually.
 
eSports have been growing for years now, and I've been to a few of the Call of Duty tournaments. MOBAs and FPS games just cater to competitive play between teams, and I think that's a great thing. I know a few people that have come close to playing professionally and they're pretty insane in their chosen games.
 
Esports are neat but the communities are becoming extremely poisonous and its killing the people who play the games casually. It bothers me because the level of harassment occurs IN CASUAL SERVERS and not just the competitive ones.
 
I think it is a good thing. Anything to bring some positive attention to the hobby I love.

That being said I don't care about or what any of it.
 
I think it's amazing, if people enjoy watching and doing it, I'm all for it. However, it needs to be taken seriously, there are many occasions where team are not being paid or someone pockets the whole tournament money. There was a case when the guy got threatened when he wanted to leave the team.
 
I don't particularly care either way, as I don't really follow the scene. Can't say I would ever think that it ruins the games, though. I mean, popularity is always good, right?

I just wish they would drop the dumb esports name. It's not a sport.
 
eSports are definitely becoming more mainstream, you only have to look at ESPN showing Heroes of the Storm and DOTA2 tournaments to realize that there is growing popular and enough interest for people to watch. I watched a few minutes out of curiosity but it just wasn't for me. It is hard to get too excited by watching others play. I'd much rather play myself than watch some one else.
 
I love it! I think it is a good thing because it is entertaining. Also, it allows people to earn money and make a career out of from gaming which makes it seem more legit and not a waste of time. I also really enjoy watching competitive games. I especially like watching League of Legends videos and tournaments. You usually end up having a favorite team and it is fun to cheer them on and watch how they do.
 
I love it! I think it is a good thing because it is entertaining. Also, it allows people to earn money and make a career out of from gaming which makes it seem more legit and not a waste of time. I also really enjoy watching competitive games. I especially like watching League of Legends videos and tournaments. You usually end up having a favorite team and it is fun to cheer them on and watch how they do.
I was curious to how much gamers can earn annually and was surprised by the findings. According to this article in Forbes, livestreamers have the potential to earn $300,000 per year or more and that a streamer with 2,000 regular viewers can generate as much as $2,000 of monthly income from streaming.

Meanwhile, I was also able to find a list of the highest overall earnings from epsorts and the numbers are impressive! You can view the rankings here.
 
eSports are a great addition to both the gaming community and sports community in general. eSports offers a competition that contains all the elements that make for a great sport to both play and observe. It will suffer from a lack of support from older generations who are less involved with the scene, but only time is preventing this becoming much larger than it already is.
 
Esports are neat but the communities are becoming extremely poisonous and its killing the people who play the games casually. It bothers me because the level of harassment occurs IN CASUAL SERVERS and not just the competitive ones.

I was thinking it was a good thing. I was about to ask how it could hurt or ruin a game, and then I came across your post. I can see this happening. I hadn't thought about it, but yeah. I see enough of it in less competitive games, where noobs and casuals get harassed. I guess if gaming companies want this to be a thing, they'll need to learn to police their games better. Casual players are their bread and butter.
 
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The one thing that eSports has been lacking is good commentary. That normally takes a generation of players to retire before you can get some of them that were good enough to be in the game, get injured or age out, still be sane enough to talk, and then have the gift of being able to do so. DoTA should be reaching that point right about now, same with League. I think Star Craft is on 3rd or 4th generation at this point, but most of that is Korean based.

Also, I love eSports.
 
I'm neutral to it. It's nice that they're getting following and exposure but at the same time like someone said the more competitive a game gets the more toxic the community can become. WoW was a good dip in the waters eye opening experience to a part of that side.
 
I'm neutral to it. It's nice that they're getting following and exposure but at the same time like someone said the more competitive a game gets the more toxic the community can become. WoW was a good dip in the waters eye opening experience to a part of that side.

WoW's PvP really doesn't count as an eSport. There is also way too much cheating allowed to continue. The ladders are always broken and filled with cheaters. It's never balanced either. Certain classes will own a season and the next go, a different class will be stupidly broken and overpowered.

As far as competitiveness ruining the community, I agree.