Sandbox: The Soul of eSports Are the Performances That Inspire
Sandbox is the weekly opinion column by eSports by INQUIRER.net’s managing editor, John Paolo “Sandata” Bago.
Like many of my generation, my first exposure to eSports as a child in 90s Philippines were thanks to the late night tournament broadcasts over the Arirang Channel.
Cable TV was a novelty among families back then and it was not uncommon to have mom, dad and the kids seated around the living room, channel surfing the night away in search of entertainment.
I was one of the kids who were lucky enough to have a father who did not immediately switch channels upon stumbling onto a Quake match in full-swing on live TV. Instead of tuning into that night’s latest sportsball contest, my father and I watched then-unknown-to-myself players duel each other with riotous bursts of color from their plasma guns.
The experience was a defining moment for myself. I remember running back into my own room and firing up my own copy of Quake 3 Arena. I was pumped up. I was hyped. I wanted to become better at Quake 3. I just watched excellence unfold, broadcasted live, straight to my living room. I wanted to be better. I wanted to compete.
I played for hours that night. Up to that point in time, I would only play the game against Normal-difficulty AI opponents. But seeing players of that caliber sparked something in me. For the first time, I played Quake 3 Arena without any handicaps, against Insane-difficulty AI. That week, I went to the local internet cafe and played against real people for the first time. I lost. Repeatedly. But I kept at it.
While I did not become doctor or a lawyer, or any other world-changing professional from watching people play videogames on TV, I did — at the very least — become slightly better than I was for watching insane performances.
A drive to become better ignited from watching other humans at the top of their field. And I was engulfed in fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGZ_8OmYqNk
Today’s eSports events are, in many ways, completely different beasts from the days of watching the Arirang Channel. Events are larger, the money heftier and the attention of the mainstream public less condescending than it once was.
But despite the titanic growth and meteoric rise of eSports; beyond talks of audience shares, attention economics and ad revenues, the soul of eSports has and always will be the same: the perfection of a craft and its power to inspire other humans to move.
I must admit that I am only a casual Counter-strike: Global Offensive fan, but the games from the MLG Columbus Major were nothing short of breathtaking. The superhuman performances put up by Spencer “Hiko” Martin and Marcelo “coldzera” David are exactly the kind of inspirational play that drove the spectator industry of eSports from niche-of-a-niche market, to the hyper kinetic-growing field that it is today.
Regardless of where you stand on the debate of what constitutes a sport, both traditional sports and eSports are pure expressions of human potential whose value lies in emancipating viewers. Where a perfect, game-winning three pointer makes poets out of every fan, so too do 4 v 1 clutch sniper kills get people to talk, think and — in those rare moments of victory — inspire people to become better versions of themselves.
This is what eSports is about. Excellence in performance. Excellence in competition. Just the joy of watching people play games and play games well.
With the money flowing into eSports coming from outside the scene, it would do well to look to its defining moments to remember where the fire started, lest its culture be doused and routed.
After watching Luminosity Gaming won their first Major title, I quickly fired up CS:GO to play a few rounds. I, being the lowly MG2 pleb that I was, lost most of my games off the bat, but I was undeterred. I had witnessed a team put up monstrous performances, learned of their story on the way to the finals and was inspired.
Banner photo from Monster Gaming on Twitter.
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