Originally published at: Why e-sports careers are shorter than those of athletes | Boing Boing
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They need a Union.
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I think the younger generation wants a life balance and that isn’t possible with e-sports (and what with that spelling: why not esports, like email?)
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Commentators get paid by the character.
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Does classic arcade gaming count as “e-sports?” Some of those competitors have very long careers.
I’m not generally into watching folks playing video games but I really enjoyed this documentary:
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A big difference between athletes and e-sport pros is that the rules for sports rarely changes in significant ways, while games can change greatly from patch to patch. The stress of having to practice and compete at really high levels on video games is enough to burn out the best of players, and generally most pro gamers end up making way more money streaming than competing so their game plan is generally play out their contract for a few years to build up their image and reputation and then pivot to streaming.
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So you’re saying they can practice and train for years only to be told near the culmination of their career that their princess is in another castle?
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They discover consensual 2 person sex?
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Is it surprising that playing video games is not a great long term career choice?
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It depends on the type of e-sports career too. I mean, a lot of streamers have very long careers. Also, the amount of money you can make as a streamer is probably more lucrative than being a competitive player. Of course, a lot of competitive players have the personality of a bowl of petunias, so they’d never make a living of being an entertainer on Twitch or YouTube.
A good number of these pros do stream. Plus if you go somewhere like Korea E-sports pros are literal super stars.
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My point is that a lot of pro’s streaming careers depend on them being awesome players in a popular game. If the game they’re good at changes in popularity, a lot of those players cannot draw an audience any more. OTOH, players good and bad who are entertaining have a much better chance of a long lasting career in e-sports regardless of what game they are playing.
Um, headline? I think that they would say they are athletes. I have no opinion on this since what they do seems no sillier or more worthwhile than other professional sports
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Compared to sports where part of your day job is getting tackled, punched, elbowed and kicked?
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I’d think sports like Darts, Billiards, Curling, Golf or Lawn Bowls might offer longer career prospects.
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Curling might not belong on that list, but for the others, yeah.
And not lawn jarts.
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So, just FYI, that “documentary” is about 65% fiction, though not everyone agrees on which 65%. The competitive arcade community gets real real mad if you even bring it up, but suffice it to say that the filmmakers had a story they wanted to tell and they didn’t let any facts get in the way of telling it.
I believe the skip of the Canadian womens’ Olympic curling team this year (the always amazing Jennifer Jones) was the oldest Olympic competitor in modern history. So yes, it is conducive to a pretty long career, I’d say. That’s not to say it isn’t a real sport, because they certainly require conditioning and such, but hockey it is not.
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Absolutely. Fighting game pros like Daigo Umehara have been competing since the late 90’s but it often does not get talked a lot in esports articles because the FGC doesn’t have the massive cash prizes like FPS and MOBAs leagues often do.
At one point in Daigo’s career he worked at old folks home for years to make a living and that was the time he was the top player in Street Fighter 4.
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There’s nothing like watching millionaires doing their favourite thing for a franchise you pay for.
Go Sportsball!!
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