eSports ready to enter the big league as nerd image left behind
GAMING has become serious business and gamers are part of the global eSports phenomenon and taking home big pay packets, writes Suzan Delibasic.
Opinion
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GAMERS are not anti-social, maladjusted nerds who dwell in basements in the eerie glow of their computer screens.
Gaming has become serious business and gamers are part of the global eSports phenomenon and taking home big pay packets.
GLOBAL PLAYER CHANGING SPORTING LANDSCAPES
ESPORTS BID FOR OLYMPIC GAMES INCLUSION
ESPORTS CLUB OPENS CROWD FUNDING CAMPAIGN
These gamers should be considered athletes because they train 11-hour days, five days a week and, like most elite sportsmen and women, they have coaches, team managers, nutritionists and personal trainers.
eSports has transformed online gaming into a spectator sport, by filling stadiums and broadcasting top-level matches, as teams strive to defeat their opponents in the digital realm, and fans are likening the experience to watching a professional sporting event.
It’s already a $1.5 billion global industry projected to grow as much as 50 per cent by 2020, and the sport is being taken so seriously that it’s being considered for the 2024 Olympic Games.
A YouGov study last year found while only 15 per cent of Australian adults had watched eSports, the number of 18-24 year olds tuning in to professional video gaming — 23 per cent — points to enormous growth potential.
Like traditional sports, fans religiously follow teams, watch matches and cheer on their favourite stars from around the world on Facebook and Twitter.
And just like traditional sports there’s a doping problem, where gamers use performance-enhancing drugs to improve their reaction and cognition times.
I visited the headquarters of Melbourne-based eSports team ORDER, who all live together in Collingwood. They have five professional gamers playing League of Legends in the Oceanic Pro League.
When I told people I was visiting an eSports team they stared at me puzzled and made unsavoury jokes about “nerds’’ because, unfortunately, the perception of gamers still carries this stigma of pale-faced teenagers, who are lazy and lack social skills.
I blame popular culture and TV shows, which have added to this stigma. Take for instance TV behemoths of the nerd genre such as The Big Bang Theory, The IT Crowd or even a classic South Park episode entitled Make Love, Not Warcraft — where we see fat and lazy gamers playing video games.
The shows were entertaining with their giggle-worthy moments, but at the same time it’s done no favours to help curb this nerd image.
But ORDER proved to defy this cringing stereotype that many other gamers have faced for too long. They take their fitness seriously and go to the gym everyday. They’re a social bunch who didn’t hesitate on being up for a chat.
And, as for a dark basement bathed in computer screens, there wasn’t one in sight.
Instead, their training room was upstairs, spacious and filled with natural light.
One of the gamers, Jake “Rogue’’ Sharwood, said his family were concerned about him becoming a professional gamer because they had a perception of teens eating snacks at a desk and, of course, not seeing the light of the day. But, after seeing Sharwood’s career progression, his family were more than supportive.
Much to anyone’s surprise, the team of five live a pretty cushy lifestyle — each earning about $20,000-$25,000, with all their living expenses including food, gym and housing paid for and, if they are selected to play in North America, they could earn up to $300,000 per year including living expenses. Not bad for just playing video games, right?
Player Simon “Swiffer’’ Papamarkos, 24, who has a degree in international politics, has never looked back on choosing a career in gaming after winning several Australian competitions before joining ORDER. In 2016, he travelled to countries including Brazil, China, France and Spain, where his team won one a qualifying tournament with a prize pool of about $20,000.
And let’s not forget the major prize pools for first place in Australia, where players can get a slice of $20,000.
If they become world champions, they could snare $1 million in prize money. If this wasn’t enough proof that eSports was massive globally; major sports teams such as Essendon Football Club have cottoned on, acquiring a professional eSports team in the Oceanic League.
Australia’s biggest gambling agencies — from SportsBet and CrownBet to William Hill and bet365 — now have dedicated sections with massive amounts of money being plunged on the sport by punters.
Like it or not, eSports is only going to get bigger in Australia, and one day it could be as common as tuning in to the cricket and footy on TV, where we’ll watch teams sweat it out in the online battlefields.
So, maybe it’s time to finally ditch the stereotypes and take gaming seriously.
Suzan Delibasic is a News Corp journalist who writes about technology, gaming and pop culture
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