Left to Right: Rasmus Filipsen (MiSeRy), Johan Sundstein (BigDaddy), Jacky Mao (EternaLEnVyy), Adrian Trinks (Fata), and Pittner Armand (bOne7).
Finally we can say that the game room at HTC Americas HQ has truly gotten its due…and not because we held an intercompany ping pong tournament there. A couple weeks ago, we had some of the best Dota 2 players in the world descend on our office to practice for their showing at The International, the largest Dota 2 tournament in the world, which is happening right now in Seattle.
If the above paragraph means nothing to you, let the rest of this post stand as your opportunity for enlightenment into the world of eSports.
But first a definition. eSports is organized, competitive video game playing, specifically at a professional level. Yes, professional gaming does exist. And those that make it to Professional Gamer status aren’t just playing for the heck of it; as of the publication of this post, the prize pool for The International is more than $18 million. So what begins as a love, an obsession, for the game can turn into a lucrative career for the world’s top players.
If you’re curious about the connection between HTC and eSports, we happen to sponsor a few teams: Team Liquid, Team SoloMid, Taipei Assassins, and Cloud9.
We had the opportunity to host Cloud9’s Dota 2 team during their training bootcamp in mid-July, and while they were here I sat down with team manager Conrad Janzen to find out a little more about the foundations of eSports, how people get into this increasingly popular industry, and what it takes to be a professional gamer.
A Virtual Wild West
In certain corners of the globe, like South Korea, eSports is revered; not only is it universally known, but it also has a noticeable economic impact. As you travel further west, though, you see more and more the signs of an industry in its early stages of development, where the infrastructure needed to support teams and individual players is still being built.
During a given season, teams play and practice to qualify for the major tournaments affiliated with their particular game. For Dota 2 players, that means playing in the hopes of making it to The International. And between all that competition, players can be traded across teams until management feels like they’ve got a team that will make it all the way.
There are two trade periods, the biggest one occurring right after The International, when teams can make player trades before having to lock down their rosters. Players are offered contracts just like you see in sports, but lengths of contracts and reasons for particular trades all seem a little amorphous. As Janzen says, “There’s nothing that’s very straight forward in our field.”
Rasmus Filipsen (MiSeRy) and Jacky Mao (EternaLEnVyy) in the HTC game room during Cloud9’s training bootcamp.
The Makings of a Professional…Gamer
“The team I manage is one of the older teams,” Janzen states. “We’re all over 21, which is ancient. In our field, the oldest players are in their late 20s, and the youngest guy who’s going to be at this major event here in Seattle [The International] is 15 years old.”
Which is to say, if you’ve got your sights set on pursuing a professional gaming career let’s hope you haven’t yet hit your teenage years. A couple of reasons why: reaction time and reflexes. According to entertainment software and technology company Valve’s “Free to Play” documentary, reaction times start to slow around the age of 23. So when the average 500-600 actions per minute (APM) that most professional players dole out in a single sitting starts to slip, it’s time to consider your next move…pun intended.
But nothing makes up for experience. Most professional gamers have been playing their games for nearly a decade by the time they’re recruited to an eSports team. “These guys are the 99th percentile of the 99th percentile. They’re the top 20 people in the world playing this game, and for them there is some sacrifice. They spend 8-12 hours a day playing. It’s a job,” says Janzen. “I would say you can never really choose to become an eSports player, it just sort of happens.”
Because of their age, professional gamers put their educations on hold and quite often have to face the disapproval of their families as they pursue gaming careers. These sacrifices, plus the increasing popularity of eSports, tend to force players to grow up a little faster than they would otherwise.
Fame and Fortune
Part of that growing up includes learning how to handle fame. While eSports isn’t quite mainstream, those who follow it really love it. During our conversation Janzen shows me a picture he’d taken of someone’s body pillow…with the face of one of his players printed on the front.
Of course, not all of them want the fame; many just want to play. “There’s no official media training for us,” Janzen says. “That’s sort of my job, to coach them a little bit for these sorts of things.”
But others embrace their fame with open arms. Some of the most popular players have over a million followers on YouTube and hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, and a big part of why they do is their accessibility.
Unlike traditional professional sports, eSports provides an open field for the average Joe Gamer to connect with the best of the best. Professional players stream their games on platforms like YouTube and now Twitch, the streaming site made specifically for video games, answering questions from fans and other players via online chat and even playing against them in scrimmages and practice sessions. With that kind of opportunity for connection it’s no wonder eSports has the following it does.
You can learn more about the world of eSports by following @HTCeSports on Twitter and subscribing to the HTC eSports YouTube channel, where you can find videos about all the teams we sponsor, including interviews with each of the members of the Cloud9 Dota 2 team.
The post The (Virtual) Wild West of eSports appeared first on HTC Blog.
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