The Skillset Needed to Succeed in eSports

Similar to how sports has multiple categories of sports, such as basketball, baseball, soccer, etc., eSports also has multiple subsections of eSports. “eSports are commonly organized around specific genres of games, such as Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (e.g. League of Legends, Dota 2), First-Person Shooters (e.g. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive), Real Time Strategy (e.g. Starcraft 2), Collectible Card Games (e.g. Hearthstone) or Sports games (e.g. FIFA-series), therefore they form many sub-cultures within eSports, in the same way that ‘traditional’ sports do” (Hamari, 2015). Each subsection of eSports takes a different set of skills to become the best of the best. Professional gamers of every subsection train and practice up to 12 hours a day to maintain and improve their level of play.

Starcraft 2, a Real Time Strategy games, is one of the most demanding games in the industry. “As in chess, the object of the game is to defeat your opponent’s army. Unlike chess, however, StarCraft doesn’t involve players taking turns, and requires more complex resource management in that you must continually generate the pieces at your disposal as you play. To do as well as the pros, you must also achieve an extremely rapid rate of keyboard and mouse inputs. Some players carry out more than 300 such actions a minute, rising to 10 a second when up against it. Add in the need to think strategically and outwit your opponent by pre-empting their moves, and the top players start to look superhuman” (Heaven, 2014). One action in Starcraft is equivalent to things such as sending your unit to a location, attacking an enemy, expanding your army, utilizing resources, etc. To put 10 actions per second into perspective, try doing 10 of the above things in a mere second every second for the entirety of the game. Its incredibly demanding and seems nearly impossible, yet professional gamers make this look easy.

Not only does eSports take superhuman reflexes and dexterity, it also requires strategy to win. At the professional level, a player that plays without a plan or strategy will lose nearly 100% of the time. “Skillful play in eSports should not be limited to technical dexterity… but also includes sporting intelligence… Central to the notion of sport is to outsmart the competition… To accomplish this, a successful eSports player must possess comprehensive knowledge and skills, ‘with game sense and (tactical and strategic) judgment to act effectively to settle the issue at hand or help the [player] solve the game problem’” (Jenny, 2016). Applying this to Starcraft 2, players develop an initial strategy and follow it through, adjusting it accordingly to the opponent’s actions. All of this is done in real time at the same time they are performing these 10 actions per second, which is truly incredible.

Several games require professional gamers to make crucial in game decisions while in the heat of the moment. “A game of this type is called a strategic-form game according to game theory. In order to find a solution, also called Nash equilibrium, we need to compute the so-called game matrix consisting of the individual payoffs or outcomes each team obtains from choosing one or the other strategy” (Wagner, 2006). Decisions have to be optimal, because otherwise a bad decision can quickly be exploited by opponents of professional caliber. Decisions have to be quick, as well. Players cannot hesitate in their actions. While they are hesitating, the opponent is not, which will cause them to lose the advantage.

Figure 1: Professional gamer “Pobelter” moves his eyes every 0.07 seconds to take in game information (Erzberger, 2016)

As shown in Figure 1, a professional player moves his eyes every 0.07 seconds while in game. This is 3x faster than the time it takes a person to read a word. While in game, there is an incredible amount of information taken in every second. Information is always changing as well, since games are dynamic and played in real time. Professional players have to take in this information and decide what they should do within seconds that will result in the best-case scenario to achieve victory.

From a combination of incredible reflexes and hand-eye coordination, real time strategy adaptation, and instantaneous decision making, being a professional gamer is not an easy as you think.

References

Erzberger, T. (2016, October 28). Mid lane whiz Pobelter scores 41 on the Wonderlic test.

Hamari, J., & Sjöblom, M. (2015, November 6). What Is eSports and Why Do People Watch It? Internet Research, 27(2).

Heaven, D. (2014, August 16). Rise and rise of esports. New Scientist, 223(2982), 17.

Jenny, S. E., Manning, R., Keiper, M. C., & Olrich, T. W. (2016, March 11). Virtual(ly) Athletes: Where eSports Fit Within the Definition of “Sport”. Quest, 1-18.

Wagner, M. G. (2006, January). On the Scientific Relevance of eSports.