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competitive flaming
counter-point: competitive flaming
Counter-Point is CS-Nation's new weekly feature. The dynamic duo who made The CS Crossfire, asspennies and rizzuh, are back together. You may know rizzuh from this site, since he runs it; and you might remember asspennies' great article from last year, Why I Still Suck.

This week asspennies and rizzuh talk about Kevin Bowen's article about the "Top Ten Reasons Pro Gaming Sucks."
From: asspennies [mailto:asspennies@counter-strike.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 1:30 PM
To: rizzuh [mailto:rze@counter-strike.net]
Subject: Sports, or something like it

Fragmaster's at it again, I see. Kevin Bowen's Top Ten list in GameSpy is certainly prompting a lot of arguments on both sides:

http://www.gamespy.com/top10/april03/pr...g/index.shtml

That's sort of fitting, because he's right—somewhat. The title, of course, doesn't really get into the heart of the issue.

I've heard it said that if you have to refer to a dictionary definition, you've probably lost your argument. So it's certainly humorous that Bowen starts out with one immediately. Defining sport as something that requires physical exertion is a little outdated. We've seen chess, pool, and poker on ESPN. NASCAR is one of the biggest sports in the country. He recognizes the subjective nature of the argument, but I really think that this is his primary issue. To paraphrase, gaming is not a sport, so how can pretending that it is a sport be anything less than pathetic?

To this argument, he makes a few good points. Competitive gaming IS always changing—the rules, the games, the players. Baseball has been essentially the same game for over a hundred years. Golf has existed for hundreds. Counter-Strike has been a competitive game for 2. And it's not likely to stay the game of choice for much longer than the 5 or so years Quake was in favor.

With too many leagues and no real fair way of competing online, Professional Gaming continues to take more hits. But Bowen loses focus when his arguments start to get more convoluted.

Having no "mainstream appeal" isn't exactly the deathblow Bowen makes it out to be. Soccer continues to have no mainstream appeal throughout the United States, despite being popular throughout the rest of the world. Does that mean that Soccer sucks, or isn't a sport? I am sure there will be some who agree with the former, few with the latter. As for whether Gamers have interesting personalities, or are too serious, I don't think it much matters. There has been a constant mistake, in my view, of trying to highlight individual gamers and not the game itself. The point is the competition, not the players. The highlighting of the individual members of the team comes after pro gaming has reached some level of saturation, not before.


I don't know if this is supposed to be offensive or not, I'll just note that Jesus has bad teeth.
I would have to disagree with his insistence that pro gaming is no fun to watch. I have watched a couple matches on HL TV and even being so far removed from it all, the excitement of the game bleeds through. That may have something to do with already being exposed to how exciting a match of Counter-Strike can get, but there is something very visceral about watching the best take on the best.

Finally, his number one reason is by far the worst reasoning in the entire list. Games are fun? Well, yeah. Playing Football and Baseball and Basketball are also pretty damn "fun. Entertaining. Enjoyable." That in no way detracts from them being sports as well. We can enjoy games on a small level as personal entertainment, as well as one wider levels as exciting new forms of competition.

The biggest problem with Bowen's list, however, is that it doesn't really address the more interesting question. "Is E-Sports really sports" isn't all that interesting. "What will it take to make E-Sports a viable sporting event?" That's considerably more intriguing.
From: rizzuh [mailto:rze@counter-strike.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 3:30 PM
To: asspennies [mailto:asspennies@counter-strike.net]
Subject: Money & mouth

Woah, calm down there Nathaniel Hawthorne! Just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean you have to word them to death, you know!

But I do agree with you. I don't want to rail on Kevin, he's a good guy and some people aren't interested in e-sports, so let's just leave your points under the "correct in rizzuh's mind" category.

I'd be interested whether or not Kevin participates in any leagues. I very much doubt it. You know, people like me and you who work with gaming websites in their free time usually are total dorks who suck at gaming. Online leagues? Ha, most of us webslaves can't manage online gaming at all! To break the stereotype, I have recently made my own clan and joined CAL. Sadly I reinforce other stereotypes by being paler than my ceiling and supporting myself on a diet of Cheez-It crackers.

What I read in Kevin's article is anti-competitive arguments rather than anti-professional arguments. I don't think this is insight, though, because there has always been a rift between those who play with clans and the like and those who fly solo. One side of the community lives and breathes for victory, the other side just plays casually and does what they want. Both groups, competitive players and not, play the game for the exact same reason though: fun!

Many people, like you for example, are big supporters of teamplay and voice communication yet still seem to distance themselves from competitive play. Teamplay and voice communication are required for any success in a league. So tell me asspennies, why aren't you in a clan?