Something
like two months ago in Katowice there was one of the
biggest and prestigious eSport events.
I am talking about IEM 2016 which was the
finals of Intel Extreme Masters (a
fourth big event that took place in
Poland).
Many
of those who had the pleasure of either being in Katowice themselves
or streaming the tournament must have agreed upon one thing. What
once was considered merely a
child's play is now growing every
year and maybe in the
nearest future eSports might take
their place among other 'real' sports. What does it bring to the world of eSport?
The first
thing is that eSports are changing to adapt everything we know from
'real' sports, and that means both good and bad things.
Corruption
Not
many people actually realize how much is at stake in some of the top
tournaments. Therefore,
not many people know about dirty schemes behind some of the rigged
tournaments. Because when there is serious money to be made, there
are always some people that think how to take a piece of that money
pie. And that's where corruption and rigging matches comes into play.
This process is rather simple. Criminal masterminds who run the whole
betting operation pay top players and teams to lose on purpose. When a
team loses a
rigged match those behind the scheme
make a lot of money betting on a
known-to-them result. This is a
classic scheme from 'real' sports
that took its place in eSports.
Here
is quite an
interesting article depicting one of
best
known
cases of eSport corruption:
Doping
This
is another, rather a
fresh case of 'distressing'
situation in eSports. We all know that doping is a
serious problem in the
world of sports, even when it comes
to the Olympic
Games of 2016:
But
as it is common in 'real' sports, it also made its
way into the world
of eSports. This case is rather fresh as it emerged in 2015 as the
result of an interview with one of
Counter Strikes: Global Offensive (CS:GO) players, Kory Friesen.
There is a link
to that particular interview a
few lines below so you don't have to
Google
it. In this interview,
Friesen admits using Adderall and
says it's pretty common behavior among CS:GO players. Adderall is
medication that is prescribed to aid in the treatment of attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy. Being good
substance to increase awareness and concentration,
it became a
beneficial supplement for CS:GO
players as the game relies heavily on having good reflex.
Here is the link to the interview with Kory Friesen:
After
these revelations, Electronic Sports League (ESL),
which is the host
of Intel Extreme Masters,
decided to take steps to get rid of doping from eSports. ESL decided
to cooperate with the
World Anti-Doping Agency,
which watches over biggest sport events including the
Olympic Games in order to establish
Anti-Doping policy among eSport players. Later the same year ESL One
Cologne 2015 was the first big tournament that had new policy
enforced. ESL decided to take a
soft approach and inform players
that they might be randomly selected for saliva based doping tests.
What is your opinion on this topic? Have you ever bet on eSport
matches? Maybe you think that taking medication that was not marked
as illegal during ESL tournaments was still not very fair-play? Or
maybe you know some other dark sides of eSports?
Comments
I've never bet on eSport matches neither on traditional sport matches.
Also, when it comes to legality of substances, it is the hosts of the competition job to define what's illegal. It might be not fair-play to take some medication that improves your performance in some way, but as long as it is legal, it should be tolerated officialy.
I can imagine that every competitive discipline has its 'dark side'... after all, players need good reflex, concentration, planning. I think this is a behaviour that should be punished, not only because it's unfair, but also because allowing to let it happen may lead to increase in number of players doing it.
Dark sides of eSports are not surprise for me. I’ve expected for corruption, doping and others. Of course the form of doping in real sport and in esport is completely different. When we talk about real sport doping we talk about substance with make physical strength, and in eSport- mental balance and concentration.
Of course that taking medication that was not marked as illegal during ESL tournaments is still not very fair-play.
I’m not a big fan this kind of sport. It rather isn’t interesting for me.
I agree with Patrycja on that part about the word "sport". Personally I don't see a problem with it being used in this context. Playing games competitively requires skill and discipline that come from training. You need good reflexes and be concentrated as well. That's a lot of dedication and many players seem to take it very seriously. But I'm not going to defend this fiercely. If somebody doesn't want to treat this as a sport, it's ok for me.
To be honest I rarely watch professional eSports nowadays. In many cases it's boring compared to watching a casual player just having fun. Pro players can be so pro that I feel like I'm watching a machine playing, not a human and that's hardly enjoyable.
Really nice topic you picked. I really enjoyed that. Peace my friend! :)
"An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment" - It's the definition of Sport i found on Internet.
Source : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sport
To assume, In my opinion esport include physical exertion, maybe not as much as real athletic sports, but still playing computer game for 3-4 hours on the stage, thinking about your next move, and trying to be more effective than your opponents, can be really exhausting. The other aspects mentioned in sport definition are the same in esport. That's why for me Esport is a sport.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132915-League-of-Legends-Pro-Attempts-Suicide-After-Match-Fixing-Scandal
This player took a coruption scandal really serious to himself. He tried to kill him self after exposing a match fixing scandal involving his team manager. He jumped from a 12-story building, crashing through the roof of a first-floor recycling center, which undoubtedly saved his life.
Still I think it is pretty logic situation when people who know how to make money on fans are using it as a way to earn some additional cash with the help of speculation (football or socker - same stuff happens all the time as I remember from news articles), however, I'm not able to understand those poor guys who are taking some kind of doping to be able click on the damn mouse faster. Seriosly? Since when do you need steroids to click mouse faster? Earn more money? I am able to understand proffesionall sportsmen, at least with money and lost health they've got worldwide reckognition and respect, but those poor souls, just look at them, they already look not very healthy because of their lifestyle in front of PC, why do they need to use some kind of drugs? To waste all those hard earned money on doctors?
I am really onot familliar with the eSports world (yet? :D). I only played FIFA, Need for Speed, GTA, Tekken and couple of other games and to be honest i really don't play video games at all. But i think it is not very surprising that many phenomena from the classic sport world came to eSports world. I think that wherever are emotions, money and competition, there always will be corruption, cheating and doping. And yeah i think the aderall stuff is defenitely unfair.
As you said, where there's money, you can expect anything and everything. It's sad but true and I don't think there's much we can do. Sure we can probably try and reduce those kinds of things, but there's always gonna be someone who'll want to take advantage of the situation.
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