Introduction to eSports

[iPickle]

It’s time to get into e-sports, and Valve is showing the way:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/07/its-time-to-get-into-e-sports-and-valve-is-showing-the-way/

I've written before about how the world of e-sports opened my eyes, combining the sense of community and shared enjoyment with one of the things that many people of a more nerdy disposition enjoy: video games. E-sports present games at their very best, showing off some of the greatest players and most exciting matches in any genre.

The e-sports scene is growing bigger and more serious. The tournament that got me hooked—the Valve Software-sponsored Dota 2 competition named The International—has returned this year with a prize pool in excess of $10 million. While Valve stumped up the first $1.6 million to get things going, the Dota 2 community itself contributed another $8.9 million to the fund. The winning team is currently set to take home $4.8 million.

That's a lot of money. It's the biggest prize pool of any e-sport competition, and it's bigger than the prize pools in other, more established competitions. The 2014 US Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta had a prize pool of about $8.6 million with a top prize of $1.6 million. This year's Tour de France has a prize pool of $2.99 million, and the yellow jersey winner will take home $612,000 when the race finishes on July 27.

The world of e-sports can, however, be tricky to get into. While at a high level, any competitive game can be described simply enough—punch the other guy until his health drops to zero, shoot the enemy opponents until they're dead, blow up the enemy's base—recognizing what's going on at any one time and identifying which player or team has the advantage and the momentum, knowing the difference between a bad play, a good play, and a great play is challenging.

FURTHER READING


REVIEW: DOTA 2 IS A COLOSSAL TIME-SINK THAT YOU SHOULD PLAY
Just make sure that you have a few hundred spare hours before you start.
This complexity can limit the appeal of the e-sports world. I follow Dota 2 religiously, but while I've tried watching League of Legends—a so-called "MOBA" game very similar in type to Dota 2—I can't figure out what on earth is going on. It's incomprehensible.

Recognizing this barrier to entry, Valve is doing something a little different for this year's International to get people a little more involved. Alongside the regular commentary and Twitch.tv broadcasts, the group stages, which start today, will include a special Newcomer's Broadcast.

This broadcast will explain what's going on in much more beginner-friendly terms, taking the time to explain what items do, why teams have been drafted the way they have been, and why the teams are playing in a particular way. The intent is to open the world of competitive Dota 2 to a wider audience.

You might find that Dota 2 isn't the game for you; if not, there are plenty of other options to choose. If first-person shooters are more your thing, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4, Team Fortress 2, and even Quake (in its Quake Live guise) all see professional play. League of Legends offers similar action-RTS gameplay to Dota 2, albeit with a more rigidly enforced meta and certain elements that lean ever so slightly in the pay-to-win category, and Infinite Crisis puts comic book superheroes into a similar MOBA setting. The venerable StarCraft 2 is a conventional base-building RTS game that continues to draw big audiences and big money. And there's an abundance of fighting games, from Super Smash Bros Melee to Ultra Street Fighter IV. If you're after something a little less frenetic, Hearthstone is also starting to pick up.

Find the one that works for you, and you'll open up a world of regular competitions, for most games are a mix of the purely online competition along with the occasional LAN tournament. Some, such as the regular Dreamhack events, are multidisciplinary, with many different games all on display. Others, such as the International, focus on just a single game.

Based on our experience with Dota 2's layers and complexity, the Newcomer Stream isn't going to make everyone a Dota 2 expert overnight. Those new to the e-sports scene will still find they have much to learn if they're to keep their Kappas per minute at an acceptable level and avoid the perils of copy pasterino cappucino, but the newcomer stream should be a fine introduction to a world that's every bit as entertaining as that of traditional sports—and then some.