Like them, hate them, never heard of them, or think they’re
dumb: no matter what you think, you can’t deny that e-sports are becoming a
bigger and bigger thing every year. Who could have guessed that, as competitive
video games got more and more popular, people would want to watch people who
were very good at playing them, just like we watch people who are good at
sports play them?
Apex 2015 is one of the biggest annual fighting game
tournaments in the Northeast United States. It stars Marvel vs. Capcom,
Pokemon, and, most prominently, Super Smash Bros. This year, three iterations
of Smash Bros were put on display: Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros.
Brawl, and Super Smash Bros. For Wii U. Nintendo was actually one of the sponsors
for the event. With over 1,000 entries for Super Smash Bros. Melee alone, Apex
2015 was poised to be the biggest Smash tournament ever seen in the US.
The day finally came, and not 2 hours into the event, a fire
alarm was pulled. Everyone was kicked out, and the fire department came. It
turned out that a recent storm had caused the floor of the ballroom to
collapse, and the building was deemed unsafe for the large number of
participants, so the tournament had to be moved, short notice.
A lot of scrambling happened, and people thought the event
was gonna be entirely cancelled. Twitch.tv, another sponsor, stepped in and
managed to rent out the Garden State Convention Center, and the event was
crammed into the following two days instead of the planned three days. It was a
very exciting tournament and, though it had its fair share of issues after the
first big one, could overall be considered a huge success.
This sort of a “fight against all odds” is what the e-sports
community has dealt with for a long time. Most people don’t take it seriously,
but I personally hope that starts to change over time. My friends and I started
a Smash Crew of our own and are competing in something called The Melee Games,
an intercollegiate Smash League in the Tri-State area. We’re competing against
a bunch of NYC colleges (like Columbia, NYU, etc). I’d bet half of the people
who just read that thought we were total nerds or something similar. If that’s
true, it proves my point. Having tried to play these games at a competitive
level, I can promise the people who are on live streams during big name
tournaments have definitely put tons of time into perfecting a skill, just like
someone perfecting their talent on a musical instrument, or even practicing a
sport or physical activity.
I need to tie this into our class somehow, so an interesting
discussion point to bring up is the blossoming pervasiveness of e-sport, and
other forms of entertainment that would only be possible with technology we
have today. Are we better or worse off for it? Has it earned its place with the
other forms of entertainment people consume now? I personally think so, but I’m
sure there are some contrasting opinions out there.
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