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Nick Wingfield reports at the New York Times that Loc Tran, a top player on the school’s competitive video game team, became a big man on campus at San Jose State University in Northern California after helping San Jose State claw its way to victory in June over California State University, Fullerton, in a tournament watched online by nearly 90,000 people. When the new school year started this fall, classmates’ heads swiveled toward him when professors said his name during roll call. “I thought that was pretty cool,” says Tran. Winning big video game competitions, also known as e-sports, can sometimes earn players several years’ worth of tuition money and, in a possible sign of the future, the athletic department of Robert Morris University Illinois in Chicago created an official video game team this fall, offering the same sort of scholarships given to athletes playing soccer, football, and ice hockey.
The rise in e-sports has been so abrupt, many schools have not determined what to make of it. Carter Henderson, a spokesman for the University of Washington’s athletics program, said no one from the department was familiar enough with e-sports to discuss the topic. Game companies say it is too early to predict how university administrations will become involved in e-sports. “This is just how basketball was in the 1940s,” says Christopher Wyatt. “A lot of the structure and organization you see in more formal athletics, that groundwork is still being laid down here.” In the meantime, game companies and collegiate league organizers predict that college e-sports could become a pipeline for the growing professional circuit. “We really want e-sports to become as ingrained in the academic environment as anything else," says Tyler Rosen like "speech competitions, football competitions."
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:53PM
I'm waiting for all those nerds who dismiss real physical sports as an activity for lower life-forms defend and rationalize this.
Being a talented athlete playing real sports requires much more training, dedication, health, and a lot more risk than drinking Mountain Dew and hammering on semen-crusted keys or pizza-stained buttons all day.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 10 2014, @06:01PM
Professional football teams play about 11 minutes per week. Divide between offense, defense and special teams, and you have less than 5 minutes of actual play.
You're gonna answer "sure, but they train 6 hours a day"...
E-sports guys work or train at least 16 hours a day. Can you stay on top of your game that long?
(Score: 1) by Darth Turbogeek on Thursday December 11 2014, @02:20AM
No, because I like going outside and not being a candidate for obesity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:48AM
Then exercise a bit and eat a decent diet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:07AM
I've been casually follownig the StarCraft II pro gaming scene, and I can safely say that the vast majority of players are not obese in the slightest.
Reference [teamliquid.net]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday December 10 2014, @06:25PM
I'm waiting for all those nerds who dismiss real physical sports as an activity for lower life-forms defend and rationalize this.
*snicker* *snort* "Heeheehee! We're superstar athletes now" *snort* *picks nose*
Never happened.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @07:48PM
The universities may want to be smart and replace their concussion-inducing sports now. A lot of sports should be okay, but both varieties of football probably don't have long to live. Mental games are probably a better realm for universities to be in, anyway.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @11:02PM
I hope you're not suggesting that video games are "mental" games, or at least not intending it to suggest that they operate on some sort of cerebral level that one normally associates with high intelligence or profound thought.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 11 2014, @05:35PM
Well I dare say playing something like Starcraft involves more brainpower than getting handed a ball and told "run that way and avoid guys who want to hit you."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"