Kading 1

Connor Kading

Lisa Tyler

ENG 1201

11/4/2020

The Misconceptions and Truths of E-Sports

As the rise of esports globally affects the world, there is much debate between fans of

sports and fans of esports at the professional level comparing the two professions’ work ethics,

including how they train and perform as professional players. Each of these differences often ties

in with both traditional sports fans and casual video game players, whereas both parties often

seem against each other in debate at which side performs ‘greater’ than the other. With that in

mind, what training must professional esports players undertake to secure their competitive spot,

and how similar are they to traditional sports?

In South Korea lies one of the greatest professional esports players of all time – Lee

“Faker“ Sang-hyeok, third-time winner of the League of Legends World Championship, and

only one of two people who have completed such an achievement. His upbringing is something

that makes sense for his craft, as much throughout his childhood he has “…always been more

interested in playing games… sleeping, more than meeting with friends.” (Binner). As well as

training for over a dozen hours each day, Faker goes on to talk about how this upbringing from

his childhood is what leads him to believe that he is a good fit to be a professional gamer, which

is paid off in his three-time world championship title.

League of Legends is one of many E-sports but holds the same concept that each major

video game holds: There are two (or more) parties pitted against each other, with the goal of

beating the enemy team through a series of objectives. For League of Legends, (LoL for short),

the goal is to destroy the enemy nexus through the destruction of defensive towers, powerful

monsters and the enemy players themselves, while Counter Strike (CS for short) holds two teams

(Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists) that are in a game of attack/defend, where the Terrorists are

attacking, trying to plant a bomb and make it go off or killing the enemy team, and the Counter-

Terrorists’ objective is to prevent any bombs going off, as well as killing the enemy team. There

are a large variety of esports in the world with these two only as a small but powerful example of

the massive market. Just in 2019 alone, the World Championship for Season 9 of League of

Legends was watched by approximately over 100 million unique viewers, in comparison to the

98.2 million viewers that the 2019 NFL Super Bowl had (Binner). While each esport is unique in

their objectives and gameplay, just like any regular sport their end goal remains the same: To

defeat their opposing teams and claim the trophy.

While for most video games, extended exposure to the screen can cause issues with

eyesight and hand coordination, some video games can also hold the ability to improve one’s

mental prowess and coordination, as well as increase the recovery rate of cognitive ability. In

one study, participants were asked to participate in a study to either watch, play with low

intensity, or play with high intensity different versions of the game Tetris. While the group

watching felt no control over their ability to perform, the low intensity control group felt most in

control, and the high intensity group was in between the other two control groups in regard to

their control over the game (Wulf). The study found an improvement in cognitive recovery for

those who participated in the study and performed, which leads to the possibility that games are

not just mindless activities that require little-to-no interaction with the mind and body, but

instead that each video game not only provides sufficient mental interaction with the program,

but also allows for an increase in hand dexterity, allowing people to improve their performance

with their hands and sharpen their mind, which is something that professional players must train

to perfect.

Video games may be great at improving the ability for one to perform with their hands

and mind, not all video games are suited for everyone. Many people who ignore the rating of

video games often find themselves picking up more violent pieces of work, and in consequence

those violent video games are often exposed to children, which could have consequences. This

often has a detrimental effect on the ability of the child’s emotional health, as exposure to online

violent video games doubles the aggression level of children, while offline aggressive video

games increase the levels of aggression by about 33% (Hollingdale, Greitemeyer). Many popular

esports are often violent video games, and due to the nature of being a popular game, many

children will seek to play it. Games such as League of Legends, Counter Strike, and Overwatch
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will not have the same effect on children as games like Rocket League and Hearthstone would,

as the latter mentioned games, although popular esports, are not inherently violent games (As the

first is a game where cars with rockets play soccer, and the second is an online car game akin to

Magic: The Gathering).

As the subject of the improvement that video games may have on dexterity and logic may

produce, oftentimes professional players must elevate their improvement to play their games

which is a reason not everyone can perform at the same level of play. A good number of elite

players often train at least 5.28 hours per day (Nagorsky, Wiemeyer), and German esports

players play around 25 hours per week. However, each esport is different in the terms of skillsets

that one requires to perform. For example, in Counter Strike players control their avatar through

a first-person view, requiring amazing accuracy and movement to succeed in their ability to play.

For League of Legends, it is a top-down view of the map, and controlling your avatar is way

different than in Counter Strike. These skillsets, while the general ability to predict your enemy’s

movements, using your reaction time, and how accurate you can be with your characters often

can be transferred, one must learn the rules of the new game, just as if an American Football

player decided to become a Baseball player. They would be able to indeed transfer some of their
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general athletic ability to their new sport, but they would have to learn a completely different

game before being able to compete professionally.

The equipment that is required for esports is the same requirement that regular sports

require, just that the gear is different. While football players require helmets, shoulder pads, and

mouthguards among many other protective equipment, professional esports need a different type

to perform well. With high-end PCs that hold the highest specs to prevent frame-rate drops, and

amazing fiber connections to secure connections to online games (Murray), the gear that esports

requires is not unlike regular sports, as high-end equipment produces better gameplay, both on a

football field, and on a PC. One of the blatant similarities across all competitive activities in the

world, and is especially true for both sports and esports would be the uniforms that each team

has, as each sports team has both a mascot and team colors, so does each esports team, with

Team Liquid holding blue and light-blue color, and their mascot being a horse, Could 9’s

uniform is a deeper blue and their mascot is a cloud.

Another similarity between sports and esports would be their routines and food

consumption. While it is known that most sports have a certain diet and workout routine to train,

so do esports as well. At the Team Liquid Alienware facility, there are professional chefs there

preparing healthy home-cooked meals for the team, instead of the often-stereotypical soda and

chips that many people associate with people who play games. The facility is also equip with a

gym for the players to hold a work out routine and stay physically healthy, to prevent them from

getting sick, as well as keeping their body up with their mind to prevent deterioration from

staring at a screen for too long each day. Each of the sports and esports have a different routine

that works for them, but they both have similar training routines that are for one goal: To get

better at their profession.

One of the biggest changes that has happened for Team Liquid – and likely for other

esport teams – that wasn’t done before, is that they now have a training facility for their players,

much akin to traditional sports. In the past, esports players often had a room to play (and

sometimes slept in as well), with the advancement in professional esports. Then they had moved

teams to the same house to live together and play, practicing their craft with each other, much

like a family setting as they were under the same roof. However, the Team Liquid Training

Facility is one of the most recent teams to build a training facility for their players (Murray)

where their team members travel to a different, professional environment to hone their gameplay.

With each of their differences often resulting in competition between traditional and electronic

sports, their training is similar, and due to that similarity do both sports and esports excel at

performing at a higher level to win.

This improvement of skill from video games doesn’t just apply to the game itself, just as

how playing sports doesn’t just affect your ability to play. While physically demanding tasks get
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easier with the more sports you play, so do dexterity-based tasks, as well as tasks involving

strategy. In a study done on laparoscopic surgeons, improvement has been seen in their ability to

perform surgeries when they participate in playing custom-designed video games that have been

validated by casual and professional players. This increase is seen in people who participate in

the games, where two of the three laparoscopic tasks, that being a rope pass and paper cut, hold

an improvement over their peers who participated in the video game, whereas the peg transfer

task did not see any significant improvement (Datta).

While it may be true that dexterity-based abilities are increased through video games, and

surgeons are able to perform better when participating in video games, this benefit can be seen in

physically demanding tasks that require endurance and strength with those who participate in

sports as well. Traditional sports are physically demanding in their requirements, and video

games are more demanding in their fine precision and mental knowledge of the game, which if

done healthily both game types can improve one’s ability to learn and perform in a variety of

tasks that are required in life. The benefit over sports that video games does have, would be that

it is much more convenient to play a video game online, with matchmaking often finding you a

game to play within minutes. Whereas for traditional sports one would have to find enough

people around their physical location to get together a team for sports, adding to the convenience

of the player who wishes to just have fun.

One of the drawbacks to video games, compared to traditional sports, would be the

moderation intake of video games can lead to addiction. With up to 23% of people reporting

symptoms of addiction (Matthews, Morrel, Molle) it is no secret that it is possible to be sucked

into addiction when it comes to video game, as the reward system for video games often connect

people, giving them more incentive to keep playing. This often provides a vicious cycle for
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people who cannot moderate their intake and they often play longer than intended. Sometimes,

they miss out on events they intended to go to as well as going to sleep way later than they intend

to, which is not as much of a problem in sports as it is in video games. This situation is more

likely for males, younger people (ages 16-21) and those with ADHD than it is for other control

groups who participate in video games (Matthews, Morrel, Molle). This is a major issue with the

gaming world that needs some addressing, and while people who are against video games and

esports believe this should cause video games to be below sports, the profession has its issues

just like any other area of life.

The issues of video games are something that is prevalent and should be addressed, but it

is no question that the rise of professional games has planted its stake in the world, and the

prevalence cannot be denied. Both professional sports and video games have more similarities

than people believe, as they both hold the same competitive nature that not everyone may see.

For starters, the ability to draw viewers is in no question powerful, as not only do millions of

people participate in viewing the competitive matches of these professional gamers, but even in

the World Championship for League of Legends in 2018 were there opening events to the

championship, much like the Super Bowl Halftime show that appears every year for the NFL.

And much to the surprise of some people, fans aren’t just apparent towards either sports or

esports. More people are getting into both scenes: While not everyone who watches may play

football, they do participate in watching the Super Bowl, just like how people who do not play

League of Legends would watch the championship series, as the professional development of

both sports and esports is a cultural part of the world and various countries, often surprising

many people with the large participation of the amount of fans.

This topic doesn’t just end at League of Legends, as many casual players whose interests

are more into other areas of life than Video Games will still watch competitive matches in other

games like Rocket League, Starcraft 2, Counter Strike and various other professional video

games throughout the world. Each of them hold a different appeal to different viewers, just like

how people who watch football may not be interested in watching baseball, and vice versa. On

the contrary, however, this could also be the opposite, where people who watch competitive

video games do not care about professional sports, and fans of professional sports would rather

watch their least-favorite sport than watch a professional video game play out. These interests of

the fans are what drive both of these professional players to perform better, as their fans’

disappointment is something that they would rather not witness when performing in their games.

People may believe that professional video games and traditional sports are two completely

different areas of competition, they are much more similar in their goal than people often give

them credit for.

Probably the most relatable comparisons between the two vastly different activities

would be the players of each sport and esport. Many of the players often come from an

upbringing in their desired sport or video game. Much like how basketball players spend their

childhood playing basketball since they could dribble, the same goes for video game

professionals who start their gameplay at a young age, spending countless hours on various video

games and sticking to one of the professional games (such as League of Legends) when they

discover it. This doesn’t just apply to their past upbringing in just sports and esports, as many

players come from all kinds of different walks of life. While some may be poor and have to claw

their way up to the top, others are just as likely to be rich and have been able to afford the luxury

of performing their craft day after day, or even just in the middle do they lie, coming from a
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middle-class family to enjoy their life. With this insight, each player has a different story that

connects to the fans and allows for people who have no interest in esports to be interested in the

professional world of video games due to their connection to the player.

While there are people arguing for the equal comparison of professional esports players

to professional sports players, some also argue against comparing the two to each other. For one,

while sports are physically demanding in the structure of one’s body, video games are

demanding in the dexterity of one’s hands as well as the mental performance of the player,

resulting in different skillsets that are required for the differing sports and esports. This often

comes from the idea that video games are nothing more than just games and aren’t anything that

should be comparable to competitive traditional sports.

This mindset, however, is an unhealthy way to look at the subject, as both video games

and sports work in conjunction with each other to provide benefits to each other, such as a study

done by various researchers that has shown that there is little difference in accuracy between

those who shoot basketball and are athletic, those who play video games, and other athletes of

different sports, sitting around 99.2%, 99.3% and 98.8% (Brage). The correlation between the

differences of video games versus sports is entirely based upon the aggression towards the

seemingly different activities, when they are indeed cut from the same cloth competitively.

The idea that professional players of traditional sports and the professional players of

video games are different in the sense of the required skills may be true, but they balance out in

the way of mental strength and dexterity, while traditional sports players often have to commit

the same mental strength as well as their physical prowess, evening out the skill of both athletic

sports and electronic sports. They are both on equal footing and deserving of the same respect,
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often going through rough training to perform at the professional level as they both commit their

life to their craft.

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