Journal 16 - Freewrite




When we’re born, we are fulfilling a role. Our parents (usually) have us in mind to be at least moderately “successful”, or at least happy. Being north american, we’ve all generally accepted the same common goals in life. Get old, make money, buy a house and have a family. For the most part, the way people go about doing this is getting an education and acquiring a career that will afford us all of the great material goods we’ve become so addicted to. Some careers build, design, improve our world. Other’s are simply entertainment, and these, ironically, are the most well paid. Sports players, actors, etc. One who is a major league anything player is looked up to as a star figure in our society, a role model and an idol. They get paid millions upon millions to simply play what they enjoy. Of course there’s more to it, travelling, time away from home, extreme training and practice regimen, etc. The reason people who are star players get paid so much in comparison to something useful, say, a carpenter, is because although the carpenter is probably more valuable to our society, it’s much easier to perform the carpenters job than it is to be a sports god.

Football, hockey, all major sports were at one point simple recreational activities. Games people played and started to organize in to competitive levels are now our national pastimes. This leads us to today’s up and coming claim to fame; video games. Many people view video games as childish and simple, just something to do in one’s spare time. To others, these people are morons. The average video gamer is not eight, ten, or twelve years old, but thirty-three. Unlike what most people would imagine, 38% of video gamers are female, a number that’s been rising steadily over the past decade. There’s only a handful of professional level sports players, with millions of people playing the game on a recreational level. What separates a player from a pro is the extent of knowledge and skill of the game, the huge gap in performance. One can easily distinguish the difference between a “Childish” game of four on four and a “Professional” , ruled and restricted game of NBA basketball. Unfortunately, unlike basketball, not everyone has witnessed a properly organized video game match. Players are praised for their skill at otherwise inane tasks, such as throwing a ball in a hoop, smashing into eachother, etc. Each sport has it’s own set of “duties”, shooting, passing, field awareness, teamwork. Anyone who has ever seen a legitimate MLG (Major League Gaming) match of any variety, halo, gears of war, or warcraft knows that it is much, much more taxing to keep your shit together in proper videogame environments than any court. Take an FPS for example, a player must not only learn how to master the subtle controls of shooting, dodging, throwing (The list goes on), but learn how to detect seemingly nonexistent signs at every angle. It’d almost be impossible to explain to someone not familiar with competitive tier play how much is really going on all at once and needs to be micromanaged on one screen. The speed at which some player’s minds operate is simply on another level than that of any rugby pro.

There are already several large videogame organizations, CAL, CPL, and MLG being the leaders. These hot tournaments for players from around the globe, with prize money, hotel accommodation, and a huge fanbase following, yet still videogames have failed to gain a proper sense of respect from the average non videogamer. It frustrates me how someone who is adept at smashing a ball with a stick of wood is looked at as a king, yet someone who needs to make more on the spot, instantaneous decisions than the entire baseball league is made out to look like a fool.


Fortunately, North America’s ignorance towards gamers is not world wide. In much of Europe, café’s have proper internet connections and computers that many people pay hourly to use for gaming. In germany and the Phillipines, DotA (A Videogame) has become a common pastime for the student body. Korea has adapted Blizzard Entertainment’s “Starcraft” in to their national pastime (No, really.), where star players live in all inclusive, specially designed homes where they spend the days with their teammates and coaches, simply “Training” day in and day out. As of recent, a few select individuals have started to earn their keep off of professional gaming via sponsorships, a good start to a lengthy , well needed change.