The Love For Gaming

By Johnny Ngo on October 22, 2014

Following the conclusion of the League of Legends 2014 World Championship Finals, this image was posted on reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends:

http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2jou8s/evolution_of_finales_of_world_championships/

In a few years, esports has grown exponentially all over the world. At the Season 1 Worlds event for League of Legends, the event was held in Sweden with a prize pool of $99,500 with eight teams qualifying. Just three years later, we have 16 teams participating in the Season 4 World Championship with a prize pool of $2,130,000 and a live audience of 40,000.

Competitive video gaming has come a long way in it’s growth to becoming something people recognize. Even today with where esports is now, there is so much more that it can become.

The New York Times has published a number of articles about the competitive League of Legends scene, calling League of Legends the “main attraction” of esports.

ESPN 3 streamed the World Championship Finals Live, the same way they did with The International 4, the largest international tournament for Defense of the Ancients 2.

Imagine Dragons collaborated with Riot Games to produce a song for the World Championship event entitled “Warriors.”

Universities recognize the prestige and competition in esports, and are now offering scholarships for high level players.

BBC published an article about the World Championship Finals event and the popularity of the game.

UIUC had almost 400 people attend a viewing party event on campus to watch the event live, which began at 2AM and ended at 6AM on Oct. 19, 2014.

The list of accomplishments continue to go on. All of these accomplishments share a handful of common factors, one of them being the acknowledgement and recognition of the popularity of the game as well as the love  for it from the players.

This is seen in other games as well, such as the Super Smash Bros.

Melee community has grown as well. Just in April of 2014, there was an approximate attendance of 30 people who attended a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament hosted by the Illini Union Rec Room. Just a few months later, they hold another event yielding almost four times the attendance of the prior event, with 125 participants in the tournament playing a 13-year-old game competitively.

Photo taken live at the Welcome Week Super Smash Bros. Melee event by Johnny Ngo

What is the relevance of all of this growth? What does this mean? Are more people spending more time playing video games? What significance does it have?

With each baby step that esports takes, more people are aware of its legitimacy and they see esports as a community that will continue to grow. Those who are fans of watching big events like the 2014 World Championship Finals or regular season LCS matches might make their way to their local sports bars as opposed to having to stay at home to watch the live streams.

The beautiful thing is watching the growth of something as incredible as esports. It gives people a lot of opportunities to find themselves. People like myself found it difficult to find a love for something until esports came along. There’s nothing that makes me happier now than to do what I can to bring the love for gaming to UIUC.

Just like in Super Smash Bros. Melee, these games create virtual worlds for people to become someone they may have never had the opportunity to become otherwise. For me, I found that in trading card games, the Legend of Zelda series and of course, League of Legends.

From picks and bans of champions or stages, from buffs to nerfs and patch to patch, esports continues to grow. No, gaming continues to grow as a scene, as a culture and for some, a way of life.

Everyone deserves to be happy, to become someone that they can be happy with and to do what makes them smile. Esports creates an environment for people to smile when they play games, allowing them to look in the mirror and smile, proud to be a gamer.

It’s surely incredible to see how far competitive gaming has come over the course of the past few years. However, no matter how big or small the game is, no gamer should be ashamed of themselves when they call themselves a gamer. As long as the love and passion exists, nothing else matters.

http://cdn.segmentnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Wind-Walker.jpg

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