Video gaming in the commonwealth games?

[CupofJoe]

It looks like it's a no-go.

Commonwealth Games makes mystery esports U-turn

Despite a successful test event for competitive gaming, at the 2022 Games, organisers reject it for 2026.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Vladd67]

Ether the committee responsible for this is made up of traditional athletes who look down on esports as just 'games' or, as sadly is happening more and more in sports, somebody was annoyed their Brown envelope wasn't big enough.

 

[SilentRoamer]

100% male dominated. Whether that's a sex thing (like traditional physical sports), a cultural thing (like STEM and the traditional discrimination against women there), or women just don't tend to be silly enough to spend 12-16 hours a day hopped up on Adderall and Monster grinding a video game, I don't know.

Gaming is not "100% male dominated" - that's a complete myth. I used to game competitively at a high level.

Because if women were allowed to compete against men the women would possibly beat the crap out of them and fragile male egos don't like that sort of thing. Easier to compartmentalise them off to one side from the start.

I have watched/played many e sports teams, including all female esports teams, and the all female teams have never been able to compete on par with the male teams. The reason women have their own category is so that they can actually compete on a fair playing field, when the groups are mixed they just get trounced. It may be an uncomfortable fact, but it is a fact.

Just watch any DOTA, Fortnite, WoW, LoL, APEX tournaments. Thats not to say there aren't some good women gamers (I had 2 on a team I used to run), but the talent pool is just so much bigger for the males.

Anyone who has had any involvement in competitive gaming knows this is true.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I could be wrong but I think pro e-gaming teams are dominated by male players. It could be, weird as it sounds, that there is a sex difference. Not certain, though.

Reaction speeds, fast twitch muscle fibres, prolonged concentration, adrenalin production in tense situations, visual acuity. There are so many physical reasons, none of them are politically correct but anyone who has been involved in competitive gaming at any levels knows this is true just from experience.

 

[JunkMonkey]

As someone who really doesn't understand the attraction of watching other people competing in competitions of any sort, I find the tribalism and obscene amounts of money involved in a lot of sports utterly baffling and some - which have huge followings, like darts, are just boring beyond words, I really find the idea of watching people doing nothing but twitching a joystick and tapping a keyboard for hours pretty close to my idea of hell. I can understand why people want to play the games. Not my kind of thing, I've played a few and got bored with them very quickly, but I can see why some people find them fascinating - my son is total Fallout geek - but why anyone wants to watch someone do it is just incomprehensible. I love reading books. I couldn't imagine wanting to just watch someone read one.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Tribalism (as someone who does like F1) in sport is beyond me. It just seems unnecessary, and bizarre.

 

[SilentRoamer]

As someone who really doesn't understand the attraction of watching other people competing in competitions of any sort, I find the tribalism and obscene amounts of money involved in a lot of sports utterly baffling and some - which have huge followings, like darts, are just boring beyond words, I really find the idea of watching people doing nothing but twitching a joystick and tapping a keyboard for hours pretty close to my idea of hell. I can understand why people want to play the games. Not my kind of thing, I've played a few and got bored with them very quickly, but I can see why some people find them fascinating - my son is total Fallout geek - but why anyone wants to watch someone do it is just incomprehensible. I love reading books. I couldn't imagine wanting to just watch someone read one.

I played a couple of games at a good level. One in particular at a reasonably high level. I would watch teams to improve my own gameplay, to better understand game mechanics, to better understand how the best teams in the world play, to appreciate the skill, teamwork co-ordination and determination of the competitors - and also just for the enjoyment of a passive view in what would normally be an active enjoyment. I used to lead one of the teams I played in (this was a ten person team and sometimes we would play for 4 hours), this could be highly stressful, watching other e-sports teams would allow me to participate in the game, without any external or internal pressures from either an opposing team or internally within my own team.

Many of the competitive games have complex mechanics and interplay between those mechanics. There is also the enjoyment of watching your favourite teams compete against other teams, at watching the best players in the world strive against each other - like in any other competitive outlay.

Reading books is completely different, because you cannot really watch someone read a book in the sense of understanding their interpretation, their action, it is entirely passive, such as watching television, there are no choices, no mechanics, no differentiation. People do not have different ways of reading a book (well I suppose they do but not in any way that is appreciable to the viewer).

Thats the reasoning as it pertains to me and most of those I know.

 

[BigJ]

Sorry for the slow reply.

Gaming is not "100% male dominated" - that's a complete myth. I used to game competitively at a high level.

I mean . . .

and the all female teams have never been able to compete on par with the male teams.

This is what I was saying. The best of the best are all males. Ergo, male dominated. That's not to say there aren't some very good female gamers, or that there aren't a lot of women playing video games in a non-competitive setting. But at the top level they can't compete with the men.

What game did you compete in at a high level, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[SilentRoamer]

@BigJ Mostly used to play WoW PvP. But also played other team based games like CoD, Fortnite, C&C and other RTS and also some turn based games and also been involved in a number of speed running communities.

 

[BigJ]

@BigJ Mostly used to play WoW PvP. But also played other team based games like CoD, Fortnite, C&C and other RTS and also some turn based games and also been involved in a number of speed running communities.

Gotcha. I've never really followed the scene for any of those. Played some of the older C&C games and my share of CoD but I've always been garbage at them. The big esports I've followed have been SC2 and the last few years a bit of LoL, but I've been nothing but a filthy casual in those as well. SC2 in particular I'd get crazy ladder anxiety in 1v1s and so just never played them. I never really used video games to scratch that competitive itch, though.