Mathlete not an Athlete

eSports, the playing of video games on all platforms at the top tier level, just like professional athletes in any other professional league, is becoming a real factor with in the sports world over the last few years. Being the newest addition to the sports world and generating new leagues in every possible competitive game, it has caught the attention of several large named former athletes and entrepreneurs. Either helping fund a team to be put together or out right starting their our teams and filling them with players, it is being seen as a solid investment and the potentials in this new market haven’t even been fully discovered. A popular team Fnatic, which was founded over a decade ago has their fingers within all the top competitive leagues which has them competing in several hundred tournaments a year. Not only is the eSports league attracting such a new and large fan base all together, the money that is being generated it making other professional leagues that have been around for hundred years look like nothing. With each year out doing the previous in revenues and awareness, the potential for how much the money can be brought it hasn’t even come close to what we are seeing currently. With current projections it is expected that this new league of sports will soon be the leader in revenues generated through their games. Poland has already created their version of the Olympics for this league, filling a large stadium with the best players in the world to compete and discover the true number 1 players. As well as having the players compete for the number spots, tech and other video game related companies showcase their newest gear and products that will soon be released for purchasing. The community has only begun to see how far they are going to go with this market.

At first the game of Street Fighter had several glitches and bugs within the game making it difficult to play and with this it was met with several criticisms and backlash from the community. When ever discussions of the game would come up, it was always being over shadowed by the negative remarks people had about the game, whether it be the game play it self lacking the ability to play certain game modes or even just the lack of options. It was also often talked about as the “eight-frame” game. Meaning, from the time you would hit the buttons that it would take about eight frames with in the game to go by and the character would finally react to what you wanted them to be doing. Obviously with such a delay in the game made it much more difficult to play and was ruining the fun that was also supposed to be happening in the game. Coming from such a poor background of game pay abilities and functionality within the game, Street Fighter has actually come a long way. Just recently the game was awarded Best Fighting game of the year. Once awarded the community thought it was a joke at first considering where this game has been in the past, but it wasn’t and the game is making large strides in the eSports world rising towards the top making it an actual player when considering good games to be playing. The community related to Street Fighter has been quite bipolar with its love and hate for the game, because of this it makes it harder for the creators to make new content and fix the game as it can see backlash regardless or what changes may have been done, good or bad.