Esports: Next Generation of Athlete Culture

Video games have been around for many years and so has competitive gaming. The first video game was created around 1970 and was Pong. Pong required one or two players to play. The players would play next to each other and the game required both players to move the courser to the ball and knock in to the other player’s side. Pong was the first competitive video game because you could play with another person. The video game industry now is a very big market and is suspected to be an 86 billion dollar industry in 2016 (A Classification Of Business Models In Video Game Industry). For the past couple of years video competitions have gotten really popular and now there is a franchise called eSports that hosts gaming competitions in big areas. “The past several year’s eSports have seen meteoric growth in dozens of markets, attracting tens of millions of viewers each year in the United States, alone” (Hollist). Esports is made up of many different games and each game has different teams that specialize in the game that they are competing in. E-Sports 89 million viewers in 2014 and is suspected to grow to 145 million in 2017. ("Red Bull Media Readies ESports Studio for Prime Time."). Competitive gaming should be recognized as a sport because each team has a sponsor. The sponsors pay for all associated costs of the player’s gaming including, but not limited to, plane tickets, hotel rooms, and food. In return the teams have to wear the

Sport’s are an aspect of life that affect societies across the globe. Athletics affect everyone's life, whether that be playing the sport, watching games, or hearing about a sporting event. There is a big difference between playing an individual sport and players relying on their own athletic abilities versus a team sport when members of the team rely on their teammates to complete each individual's specific responsibility to reach the team's goal. Team sports bring people together in countless ways, and they teach many life skills for the athletes that participate in them. Some of these skills include communication, teamwork, discipline, work ethic, dedication, leadership, and numerous more that will help them in their personal and work

Video games are an ever-growing franchise that is constantly undergoing change. Ever since the dawn of video games, new consoles, games, developers, and teams have come together, fallen apart, triumphed, and failed. What is it that has allowed some to thrive where others failed? Several different factors have changed and influenced the world of gaming, including the history that is continuously being written, the people who have built the games behind the scenes, and, of course, the actual video games themselves. Numerous video games have been more successful than others, but identifying what components set the successful apart from the unsuccessful is something definitely worth observing.

Sports—which involve emotion, competition, cooperation, achievement, and play—provide a rich area for psychological study. People involved in sports attempt to master very difficult skills, often subjecting themselves to intense physical stress as well as social pressure. research has expanded into numerous areas such as imagery training, hypnosis, relaxation training, motivation, socialization, conflict and competition, counseling, and coaching. Specific sports and recreational specialties studied include baseball, basketball, soccer,

Lately though, these games have lost it’s purpose and the lessons these players could be learning are far from what is transpiring. The emphasis on winning or losing has significantly outweighed what these sports are all about; teamwork and having fun. Alfie Kohn, author of “The Case Against Competition” found a study researched by David Johnson, a professor at the University of Minnesota, and his colleagues. They previewed all the studies they could find on the subject of competition from 1924 to 1980. Sixty-five of the studies found that children learn better when they work cooperatively as opposed to competitively, eight found the reverse. It is proven that you can get the most out of a topic whether it’s school work to sports, you learn the most from working in an atmosphere where they work together not against each other. In addition, children have been enrolled in intense sport training as early as the age of 4, not allowing them to have a chance to really pick what sport they are interested in. A lot of times parents hope to fulfill their dream, by having their offspring due what they never got the chance as a child. This doesn’t give kids the chance to develop and make decisions for themselves when it relates to the sports they want to play. This causes children to not only unhappy but dependent on

We are now living in a world where video games have become a major aspect of some people's lives. It has impacted many in a negative way and positive way. Most of these games provide us with a theme or lessons we can take away from playing. I’m not a big gamer, but being a soccer player, I have fallen in love with FIFA. I’ve always finished my homework quickly or decided not to do it at all, so I could play FIFA. I was never able to imagine a video game could have such an impact in my character and life. FIFA has done just that and has overall helped my time-management, as well as my patience.

Most of the time we think that the physically stronger have the higher chances to win the game. But in most of the sports don’t only use your body, but also you have to make strategies and moves that would help you win, which it is obvious that we need our brains to do this. In the article, the researchers wanted to know what group of students could cross the streets faster without running. They took two different groups of college athletes and nonathletes students to see who can go to the other side of the street quickly. In this article we can learn that our brains play a huge role in our physical

Whether it’s playing video games or watching video games, we get filled with an intoxicating feeling to play or watch more. Throughout generations, there has been an increase of people playing video games and about half the population in the United States plays video games. Since 1980, video games are taken to a different level with eSports, which is competitive electronic gaming tournaments with other competitors. In 2000 to the present , eSports grew in popularity and became known worldwide because of the game “League of Legends”. In 2011 “LoL” tournament ranked over 1.6 million views worldwide and during a “LoL” championship in 2015 over 36 million people were viewing the game. ESport raises this question: “Do video games counts as sports?” Video games do not count as a sport because it does not match the criteria of a sport,video games are luck-based, and are unhealthy.

Salinas, E. J. (2013). Competitive video gaming, the sport of the future. Retrieved February 22, 2016, from https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/22690

By exercising those abilities in games, Johnson proclaims that we learn to make the right decisions in the real world as well as we make a habit of weighing evidence, analyzing situations, consulting your long-term goals, and then deciding (41). Video games can alter the way we think, learn, and process information but as Nicholas Carr, the author of The Shallows, announces, “Experiments show that just as the brain can build new or stronger circuits through physical or mental practice, those circuits weaken or dissolve with neglect”(35). This means that even if our society as a whole recognized the benefits of video games, there would still be an unanswered question: what skills or qualities do we value more? Do we value the skills and qualities that were surrounding us as most of us were growing up or the ones that are being toned and shaped by the video games that people now play?

According to the article ‘Teens: Why Becoming An Esports Athlete Is A Bad Idea’, we agree that teenagers shouldn’t become esports athletes for several reasons. First of all, becoming an esport athlete requires a lot of effort and time to practice. The professional gamers usually spend at least 50 hours per week, which means that they will have less time to interact with their family and friends. It is also a waste of time to spend most of the time playing games instead of preparing themselves for a real life job with required experiences. Secondly, being a real gamer can cause them to have bad health such as bad eyesight, obesity, and back pain. As you already know, this type of athlete will spend most of their time on their comfy chair and

Imagine a large arena filled with two competitive teams. The tension grows and finally, one team prevails and is greeted by stupendous amounts of cheering. There are a wide variety of video games that are popular worldwide, and are played by many different people. Video games, and gaming in general, should be considered to be added in the many sport selections because of how similar it is to any other sport: how pro players that get paid, and how a lot of talent is necessary to play.

Competitive gaming, also known as e-sports, is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. With huge events and tournaments that are watched by millions of passionate fans, many people are beginning to question whether playing video games can be considered a real sport. Even though e-sports may not be as physically demanding as traditional sports like football and basketball, the structure, strong fan base and the requirements to seriously contend in the competitive gaming scene legitimize it as a “real” sport.

Throughout the past decade, digital technology has dramatically advanced. In the early 2000s, cell phones were unheard of, and now they seem to dominate communication, and the social lives of everyone. Not only has the rapid advancement of technology affected communication, and other social aspects, but has also brought digital gaming into the mainstream. Advertising competitive and sophisticated experiences, video games have dominated multimedia sales, with some games grossing over one billions dollars in the first week, and have created a new and exciting competitive space, known as eSports (Grand Theft Auto). This competitive form of digital gaming has many to believe that eSports should be recognized as a professional sport. Though this

Playing video games is among one of the favorite pastimes of many people around the world. Some play games to kill time with simple tasks found most commonly on the phone, while others play them to challenge their mind in the form of complex puzzles or to practice management skills, some play them to experience a sense of adventure that they just can’t find anywhere else, and many use them as a way to communicate or have fun with friends both near and far. Whatever the reason someone may have for playing video games, they may not think that games can have an effect on their brains. Some would say that playing video games can lead to negative effects such as harming the player’s cognitive skills or causing them to become much more violent than normal. Others would argue that playing video games quickens the minds of their players, leading to higher mental performance or an increased attention to detail. Thanks to this hotly debated controversy many studies have been conducted over the past years in order to settle the debate once and for all. So what effect can playing video games have on the cognitive skills of their players, and are these effects positive, negative, or somewhere in the middle?