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Marc Lineback

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

9/21/17

Topic Proposal: eSports, Professional Athletes or Overrated Couch Potatoes?

Introduction/Overview

What I am curious about is video games. Not just video games, but the competitive

aspect of video games. Video games have always inspired some fierce competitiveness. Over the

years, however, they have also inspired teamwork and communication, as well as fierce

competition. Ive never considered video games to be sports, or myself an athletic type, but I

have always had a competitive side and a love for video games; Therefore, I will be researching

the growing world of eSports and if it should be considered a real sport. eSports stands for

Electronic Sports, and refers to professional video gamers who compete in tournaments for a

title and/or prize. For example, the largest eSports tournament was a DOTA 2 tournament this

year, in 2017, with a 25-million-dollar prize pool.

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word sport as An activity involving physical

exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for

entertainment. On the contrary, an EPSN article quoted Professor Dr. Ingo Frobse, Head of

Center for Health through sport and movement at the German Sport University Cologne, who

shared some insights on eSports as a sport in an interview with Competitive Gaming Conference

(CGC) Europe. He stated that a sport is not only about the physical movements; Sport is more

than visible movements you see on a sports field. In fact, this is just one component of a big

puzzle that defines the term sport. Mental skills, strategies or training are just a few other
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examples of components which influence the performance. All of them can be found in

Competitive Gaming. (quoted Professor Dr. Ingo Frobse). Those who are willing to call

eSports real sports, say that the physical exertion requirement could be the 800 actions per

minute the players must execute, or the reflexes needed to react to a scenario in-game. On the

other hand, people who are against calling eSports a real sport say that it is just fine being called

eSports. The key difference is the physical exertion, and training, and overall concept; theyre

just too different.

To gather as much information as possible for my research, I turned to the internet.

Namely, I explored sites such as ESPN, CNN, NY Times, and other online news sources for

information and reading.

eSports has become huge over the past 30 years, and is one of the largest betting scenes

in the sports industry currently. With this being said, many large corporations and sponsors

have a vested interest in eSports and its athletes or players. The important reason the athletes,

fans, and sponsors want eSports to be recognized as a sport, is so that the regulations and laws

that apply to sports will also apply to eSports. Many players have been denied athlete visas into

countries that dont recognize eSports as a sport, and in turn, could not compete in the

tournament. Traditional type people however, arent willing to give eSports legitimacy in the

category real sport because of the lack of physical exertion. These debates are ongoing in

social media, some television studios, and in the games that they involve.

Initial Inquiry Question(s)

Could the opposition to eSports as a sport be primarily due to a generation gap? To what extent

will this effect sports TV channels? Could eSports enter schools as a team sport? Could our
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definition of sport change if eSports is considered a sport? Should our definition of sports

change? What does the inclusion of eSports as a sport say about us as 21st century humans? What

other things could be sports by the eSports definition? Could games such as Chess be a sport?

My Interest in this Topic

words such as love and passion lightly, as I have spent over 3,000 in-game hours on my

Xbox, and well over 2,000 in-game hours on my PC. I get these high numbers from statistics

recorded by Microsoft(Xbox) and Steam(PC), as well as some standalone titles like SMITE, a

popular online PC game. With all this experience in video games, Ive never competed in

tournaments or competitions, because as a kid, I was too afraid to fail. A loss in Ranked mode

was always too heavy for me to handle, and it didnt make the game fun anymore. Even the

unprofessional Ranked games were extremely competitive, and if you didnt play with a group

of people you know, the random people you were grouped with would likely yell at you if you

didnt do well. It wasnt until about a year ago in 2016, when I started to go easier on myself and

give myself a chance. The bad news, however, is that I also started to spend less time playing

video games about a year ago, going from about 8 hours of gaming a day, to about 2-3 hours a

day. Sadly, I never got the chance to join any teams, or really get into a competitive area with

video games.

That is where my interest in eSports comes into play, I havent done any research on

eSports or the professional gaming scene until this assignment. Just by reading a few online

articles, I am already very excited to do more research. I came across an article title on the FOX

news website, that read Could eSports show up in 2020s Olympics?, and through strong

willpower, I saved it for another day, because I had to research other things at that time. I hope to
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learn more about eSports as a sport and competition, maybe even how to join or form a

professional team. Ive never thought of myself as good enough to be called a professional, but at

about 5,000 hours of practice, I should know something about playing video games well, right?

Who knows, but I am excited to learn about it more.

Even though I havent been a professional gamer, nor have done any research on them, I

have watched my fair share of professional gamers. The professional gamers that I watch are

professional in the sense that they have made a career off the games that they play, not in the

sense that they are good or more skilled than others. These videos are often called Lets Plays,

and consist of one or more people playing a game, and recording themselves doing it. On paper it

may not sound entertaining, but neither does watching a group of people try to kick a ball in a net

for 2 hours.

Next Steps
For my next steps, I will go to the games themselves. eSports games tend to be FPSs*,

RTSs*, and MOBAs*; and Ive only had experience with one MOBA(SMITE). I plan on going

to the biggest games in the eSports world, DOTA 2**, LoL**, Hearthstone**, CS:GO**, Call of

Duty**, and StarCraft**. I have only played one of these games, one time, for about an hour;

Hearthstone, and I didnt really understand it so I quit. This time, however, I will be going into

these games a noob***, and will only be playing in the ranked modes, so I might experience

myself what an eSports player experiences. On the other hand, I will also pick up a couple sports

in my free times, such as kickball, flag football, and tennis. By doing this personal research, I

hope to have a better sense of both types of sports, and have the ability to form a better opinion

based on my experiences.
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Furthermore, my personal experiences will only act as supporting research, While my

main research will be online. I will go to sports websites and gaming websites, such as ESPN,

and GameFAQs. I will also go to social media outlets and news networks for the most recent

information, like the NY Times, Polygon, and ADANAI. Additionally, I will look at more

opinionated sites such as FOX and CNN. These sources have several articles on eSports, and the

controversy behind calling it a real sport. I also intend on making good use of the library

recourses here at UNCC. Through the library website, I have found articles in magazines such as

New Scientist.

*FPSs First Person Shooters;

*RTSs- Real Time Strategy (games);

*MOBAs- Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas

** DOTA 2 Most popular MOBA in the eSports world;

**League of Legends(LoL) second most popular MOBA in the eSports world;

**Hearthstone Popular online card game in the eSports community;

**Counter-Strike: Global Operations(CS:GO) Popular FPS in the eSports community;

**Call of Duty Popular FPS in the eSports community;

**Starcraft Most popular RTS in the eSports community

***Noob Newbie, new player with little experience in a specific game.