Just finished playing the base game + DLC of Ghost of Tsushima, per bestie’s recommendation. At first, I was skeptical about whether I’d last past the first 15 minutes—looking at Jin’s face, not really attracted to him, nor particularly wanting to play as him. The opening was only so-so, given today’s standards for game cinematics. Not to mention, in the case of the Japanese fighting Genghis Khan’s grandchildren, I’d probably be keener to side with the latter given my Chinese heritage.
But the game quickly reeled me in with its open-world exploration mechanics—the ever-familiar Witcher/Skyrim-esque formula of discovering places of interest, revealing the fog on the map, gathering collectibles, etc. As I discovered the joys of counter-attacking after a perfect parry, pulling off a clean five-man stand-off, and breaking barriers with the matching techniques, I knew I had to finish the game. Beyond the chill exploration of Tsushima’s beautiful landscape, which offered countless picturesque moments, there was also the suspense of Shimura’s judgment looming on the horizon, keeping me eager to uncover more of the story.
The base game’s ending was poetic and emotional, and I loved it. I loved the message it conveyed about creativity, survival, and traditions. It also makes me wonder—does it reflect a questioning, awakening, rebellion, or contemplation among this generation of Japanese against the deep-rooted traditions that Japan, as a nation and tribe, so greatly values? The expectation to obey and observe traditions and codes without question was, incidentally, also the foundation of Japan’s militaristic capabilities, which led to massacres and war crimes that subjected many, including my grandparents’ generation, to cruelty. Maybe they’re now considering capitalizing more on their national strength in creativity while abandoning the traditions and customs that have only served to bind them—forcing them to knowingly make mistakes in times of crisis. Maybe this is their way of signaling to the world that the new generation of Japanese is rebelling against their predecessors—and they’re done making mistakes.
I, for one, absolutely love this generation of Japanese creators for crafting such an amazing masterpiece of a game. Please bring us more like this, in Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2.
To this day, many people still don’t recognize the difference between gaming and esports.
On top of using their brains, esports athletes need incredible levels of hand-eye coordination & reflexes, long-lasting stamina & focus. If they don’t eat healthily and exercise, it affects their physical condition and causes brain fog. So most esports training regimes consist of physical training as well.
People take issue with esports because they think all esports players do is sit around, move their fingers and game.
But did you know how boring, repetitive, and stressful esports training can be? At the top level, nobody thinks of gaming as a source of enjoyment or relaxation. It just happens to be the activity you’re talented or gifted in. It’s merely a tool to best your opponent and win the prize.
On top of muscle memory training & reflexes training, imagine getting told off for your shortcomings every single day, being forced to reflect on your mistakes, and finding ways to improve so you won’t drag your teammates down.
Imagine an in-game misplay that costs you and your team a few million dollars.
Imagine having excruciatingly painful, inflamed tendons in your arms because of years of repetitive movements.
Imagine having blurred vision and headaches because you’ve been staring at the screen with such intense focus for hours on end.
Imagine having to live with neck & back pain for the rest of your life.
Not to mention how short the career lifespans are for esports athletes, sometimes even shorter than those of traditional sports athletes.
It’s an incredibly competitive field. Many are lured by the prospect of huge cash prizes into becoming esports athletes, but less than 1% can actually get their hands on them. Everyone at the top has sacrificed a great deal to get to where they are. Luck, discipline, physical condition, and mental strength also play big parts in this, and it’s nowhere near easy.
So please, stop equating gaming to esports and blaming your children’s gaming addiction on esports. It’s truly an insult to the years of blood, sweat, and tears that our esports athletes have put into training.
Gaming is not sports. Esports is a sport.
To this day, many people still don’t recognize the difference between gaming and esports.
On top of using their brains, esports athletes need incredible levels of hand-eye coordination & reflexes, long-lasting stamina & focus. If they don’t eat healthily and exercise, it affects their physical condition and causes brain fog. So most esports training regimes consist of physical training as well.
People take issue with esports because they think all esports players do is sit around, move their fingers and game.
But did you know how boring, repetitive, and stressful esports training can be? At the top level, nobody thinks of gaming as a source of enjoyment or relaxation. It just happens to be the activity you’re talented or gifted in. It’s merely a tool to best your opponent and win the prize.
On top of muscle memory training & reflexes training, imagine getting told off for your shortcomings every single day, being forced to reflect on your mistakes, and finding ways to improve so you won’t drag your teammates down.
Imagine an in-game misplay that costs you and your team a few million dollars.
Imagine having excruciatingly painful, inflamed tendons in your hands because of years of repetitive movements.
Imagine having blurred vision and headaches because you’ve been staring at the screen with such intense focus for hours on end.
Imagine having to live with back pain, arm injuries or stress-induced medical conditions for the rest of your life.
Not to mention how short the career lifespans are for esports athletes, sometimes even shorter than those of traditional sports athletes.
It’s an incredibly competitive field. Many are lured by the prospect of huge cash prizes into becoming esports athletes, but less than 1% can actually get their hands on them. Everyone at the top has sacrificed a great deal to get to where they are. Luck, discipline and mental strength also play big parts in this, and it’s nowhere near easy.
So please, stop equating gaming to esports and blaming your children’s gaming addiction on esports. It’s truly an insult to the years of blood, sweat, and tears that our esports athletes have put into training.
If your child isn’t gifted in gaming, it will at best be a hobby or pastime; they will not suddenly become an esports player – if there are no orgs or clubs willing to sign them or pay them salary to compete, it’s considered a hobby and not a career.
And therein lies the difference between esports and gaming.
A recent article posted on The Straits Times insinuated that esports athletes are inferior to other sports athletes because they’re mostly game addicts who sits around all day, only moving their eyes and fingers. The author also implied that esports is in essence not too different from hobbies such as knitting and baking.
Truth is that the author is pathetically misinformed about the strict training regimens of esports athletes nowadays, and isn’t able to effectively tell the difference between esports players and casual gamers in the first place. And unfortunately, many others share these misconceptions about esports.
Prize pools in esports have amounted to exceed that of conventional sports, with stakes as high as tens of millions in USD per match. Under these conditions it is incredibly naive of these naysayers to still think that any esports team or professional player would not be doing whatever it takes before matches to ensure their physical and mental states are in tip-top condition.
1. First of all, GAMING ≠ ESPORTS
Gaming is a hobby, esports is a full-time job.
Many non-gamers love to throw the term ‘esports‘ around with contempt and thinking it simply means ‘a bunch of game addicts wasting time‘, without even bothering to find out what ‘esports‘ really means. The difference between esports and gaming is essentially the difference between the NBA League and street basketball that you play with your friends.
And similarly, comparing esports athletes with casual gamers is like comparing Muhammad Ali to a someone who punches a sandbag at home to destress everyday – apples and oranges.
Esports by definition means competitive gaming, but as we have so many top-tier competitions nowadays with insane amounts of prize pool, esports should be more accurately defined as “the top level of competitive gaming“. As such, anyone can become a competitive player, but it’s definitely the cream of the crop who’d come to be referred to most often as “esports players“.
Professional esports athletes chose esports as a full-time job. They made the conscious decision to dedicate their life to the craft, moving into a bootcamp / training house, and hone their skills on a daily basis with the help of support staff such as full-time coaches, analysts, psychologists and chefs or nutritionists. As players are contractually-obligated to commit to daily training, and share the same goal of winning as the organizations paying their salaries, most of them only take short breaks from daily training at the end of competitive seasons.
At the top level of competitive gaming, hard work is something that’s so ubiquitous that it’s expected of everybody – nobody would brag of training diligently; results would speak for themselves.
Professional esports teams train against other pro teams (often from another country / region) on a daily basis, and in between training they’d either be watching and analyzing replays, coming up with new tactics and strategies, working on improving teamwork and communication, studying recent changes or trends in the game, or exercising in order to keep their stamina up to prepare for long hours of intense concentration.
Loving the game doesn’t equate to being good at the sport.
Gaming is a huge industry made up of billions of gamers worldwide, and many gamers aspire to become professional players. But the sad truth is, perhaps only the top 0.00001% can eventually make it to the international stage. Hard work, top-tier skills, dedication and the right mindset is a given; and you’d need more than a bit of luck to get scouted and picked up by a proper team / organization, have compatible teammates to compete with, build a strong reputation for yourself, for the slight chance to eventually get picked to represent your country when the time comes.
And the five in every SEA country who eventually get selected, would be your esports athletes representing their respective countries in the SEA Games.
So insinuating that our national esports athletes are just a bunch of lazy bums sitting around all day is honestly a rather huge insult.
2. Of Physical Aspects and Sacrifices
There are in fact many parallels to be drawn between esports and certain conventional sports titles. Take competitive shooting for example – when competing at the international-level, like esports it requires intense mental focus maintained for a prolonged period of time, excellent physical condition as a basis for stamina, as well as strong psychological resilience in order to excel.
The international esports stage is where a momentary lapse of concentration could mean losing a million-dollar game; a well-timed skill instinctively executed by muscle memory could as easily turn the tides in a team’s favor in a close game. There’s no room for mistakes in a top-tier match – one player’s error could mean the loss of millions of dollars for the entire team; there’s simply too much at stake.
As such, maintaining tip-top physical form is essential to winning games. Many esports teams have taken to incorporating some form of daily physical training to their training regimes, as physical form is well-known to be linked to greater stamina and better mental focus, both essential skills for esports athletes.
Most physical sports require maximizing the potential of various parts of the human body, and esports as well has incredibly high requirement for hand-eye coordination and lightning-fast reflexes. Repetitive reflexes and muscle memory training are thus included as part of some teams’ daily schedule.
And diet-wise, since a couple of years ago nutritionists and full-time cooks are already included as part of the support team living in esports team bootcamps. Many teams ban fried or unhealthy food in general during competitive seasons as it’s said to slow your reaction time.
What people don’t see is that many esports teams also impose strict rules on social behavior, prohibiting the use of mobile phones, messaging apps and stopping players from leaving the bootcamp or seeing their partners during competitive season, as all these would tend to distract players and affect their emotional state and eventual condition in matches.
These are some of the common sacrifices made by esports players who compete at the top level, mutually agreed with and enforced by team organizations.
3. Definition of Sports – Not a Comparison of Brute Strength
When it comes to the definition of sports, we disagree that it should be a comparison between the extent of the usage of bodily muscles, as suggested in the original article. If we go by this logic and go about defining what’s sports and what’s not based on the amount of ‘physical challenges’ involved, does that mean that anyone who can lift a 100kg weight or display a certain amount of physical prowess can effectively be considered an athlete?
If that’s the case, what about sports titles such as golf, archery and shooting? Should they be considered sports titles since the amount of ‘physical challenges’ required are also limited to certain body parts and doesn’t necessarily require Herculean levels of brute strength? Just where exactly do we draw the line?
4. Esports is Not in Desperate Need of Recognition
Esports is already a billion-dollar industry on its own – with a strong fanbase and lines of merchandises built around its unique pull and high entertainment value as a spectator sport. With numerous competitive game titles across different platforms (PC, consoles & mobile), most international esports tournaments nowadays have no trouble filling up entire stadiums.
After all, esports still has its roots in gaming, and it relies heavily on the sponsorship and investments attracted to the huge gaming consumer base. And with that, within the past decade we’ve seen the formation of healthy ecosystems surrounding esports, creating more and more full-time, sustainable jobs, including match commentators, team managers, esports journalists, game analysts, etc.
Even with the huge stigmatization towards gaming and widespread misconception towards the notion of ‘esports‘, the industry is already standing strong on its own, having regular competitive seasons and league systems, solid fanbases and markets, high-quality media production, engaging narratives, an ever-growing pool of talents and support staff keeping the scene running and expanding exponentially. Seeing the potential in a budding industry, an increasing number of professionals such as lawyers and psychologists as well as entrepreneurs and investors are exploring or creating opportunities in esports as well.
Gaming is a widely-favored form of entertainment in this generation of youths, and as they grow up to make up the workforce and make the conscious choice to join and further grow the esports industry, it won’t be surprising if esports eventually comes to edge out conventional sports.
Hence, we’re glad to say that at this point in time, esports is really not in desperate need for recognition. Being part of the SEA Games or the Olympics is definitely a huge step forward for the industry in raising awareness amongst the general public or gaining governmental support, but we’ve done fine on our own in the past decade, and are thus completely alright with not being part of these mixed sports events.
Like a “well it’s nice to be included, but we’ll also do fine without it”.
Because with or without the support of the older generation who refuse to open their mind and understand esports, the industry is here to stay and will only keep growing stronger as the years go by – and that is the truth whether or not you choose to accept it.
话说，某本地知名战队经理 E 君在决赛两个星期前通过各种管道，软硬兼施地要求赛事方把自己的战队强行加入线下赛中，或是替补当时已经受邀的战队。可是由于我们都觉得这样对其他早已受邀、参加预选和成功出线的战队太不公平，于是就没有同意他的要求，同时邀请该战队在我们的全明星赛中亮相。他们的选手之后好像也是推却了，事情不了了之。
反正第一场的情况就是，选手自行建主机，投币之后马上开始，主机里没有裁判，在场的和国际的解说都不知情。基本上跟训练赛没有两样。我当时脑中根本无法理解这种情形到底为什么会发生。之后我就跟那帮裁判（志愿者）说，此后比赛我来负责，我会通知 OB 来开比赛主机，然后知会所有解说，经过我的允许才能开始。我擅自插手此事虽是有点惴惴不安，不过我觉得是必要的。否则线上的观众看什么？
Tiffani "Oling" L. 