SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

Careers: Sports vs E-Sports
 

I've been skeptical about the whole 'E-Sports' idea for a while, and something just occurred to me to reinforce this. It concerns the difference between E-sports and other sports.

No regular sport is controlled and kept alive by a single company (afaik anyway). SC2 is the intellectual property of Blizzard, so they have complete control over it, and would be very unlikely to allow any infringement of their IP. Other sports however, are often universal, played around the world, and owned by no one. Both e-sports and other sports professionals dedicate themselves to their chosen pursuit, as it is their career and lifeblood. They put blood, sweat and tears into competing to be the best. However, is there a substantial difference between the usefulness and longevity of the skills acquired by e-sports players and other sports players, in terms of developing and maintaining a career?

I'm not at all familiar with how sports associations and leagues are structured business-wise, but let's propose a hypothetical situation:

Suppose the Football Federation of Australia shuts down due to a declining interest in soccer (football) in Australia. Let's say that because of this, there are no more professional soccer teams or leagues in Australia, and all full-time career players are out of a job. Have the players' years of training and effort been a complete waste of their time, leaving them unskilled and unable to get a decent job without further years of education/training? Well, potentially not. Why? Because the sport itself is still alive and the players may have the skills required to compete elsewhere.

But if Blizzard closed its doors in a year or two (or perhaps more realistically decided to cease support for SC2), what happens to those players who spent the last couple of years training full time in SC2? There's nowhere else for the players to go. Even if Blizzard kept the servers running, the ladders would become a cesspool of hackers and cheaters to the point where it would be totally unplayable. Due to Bnet 2.0 and lack of LAN, custom ladders such as ICCUP are out of the question. Blizzard totally controls SC2, and without their support, the game (and sport) dies. Due to SC1 and Brood War's longevity, people expect the same sort of longevity from SC2. However, Blizzard is under no obligation to continue support for the game, just as other games publishers decide to shut down servers when it's no longer profitable for them etc. Does that mean that a hundred or so professional SC2 players' lives are riding on the profits or business direction of Blizzard? With SC2 dead, would those players' years of training and effort have been a waste of time, leaving them without skills to continue their careers?

Let's take a look at EGIdrA. He moved to Korea when he was 17 or so. He lived there for the last few years, dedicating his life to professional Starcraft. Not only has he done nothing but train for professional gaming that whole time, but he is doing it at a critical moment in his life - the time when most people develop skills/knowledge which help initiate or develop their life-long career. He sacrificed a highly regarded position at one of America's best universities, because he loved starcraft so much. What would IdrA do if SC2 died? Sure, he's still very young, and could no doubt go to college and get a qualification. But it would leave a nasty stain on e-sports. IdrA is easily one of the most entertaining, and committed, SC2 players in the world - a great asset to the sport. For someone who has sacrificed so much, and put so much hard work, commitment and love (:P) into Starcraft 2, to be effectively kicked out of his profession would be a big set back for the development and image of e-sports. I think that it would certainly discourage future gamers from entering into a professional e-sports career, if they looked at the work that IdrA put in, and what he got back.

Edit: Ok wait. having rethought that, if SC2 died out prematurely, the plethora of committed players, not just IdrA, losing their job and career would leave an unforgettable mark, and forever scar e-sports. /edit

Sure, there are transferrable skills in video games. Perhaps IdrA and other players could pick up a new game. Many professional SC2 players came from WC3, BW, DoW etc, which are quite different games. But players still effectively have to learn a brand new sport, and dedicate a huge amount of time to adapting and learning new skills etc, which regular sports professionals wouldn't have to do.

Now, this discussion doesn't have to be about SC2. It could be about any E-sport, future or current, as the issues remain the same. i.e. Intellectual Property vs universality. E-sports careers vs sports careers. No professional sport would be successful without content participants. The fact that regular sports are universal and owner-less means the participants can see a future in their chosen area, without having to worry about whether their sport will even exist in a few years time.
E-sports careers on the other hand, seem to offer very little flexibility and longevity. Does this lack of certainty about the future of games and gaming careers make e-sports not viable in the long term?


p.s. I came into the world of starcraft after SC2 was released, so I'm fairly uneducated about SC1 and WC3. Also, I'm writing this late at night so I may not be thinking clearly :P Should this be in blogs btw? :/