Dozens crowd around six
flashing, bright monitors, eyes fixed on the on-screen action.
After several intense
minutes of white-knuckle gaming, a bright thunderbolt pushes the defeated
player off the screen and a message declares his opponent the winner. The two
human combatants then shake hands as friends and fellow gamers congratulate the
winner.
This scene plays out
two Saturday nights a month at Zero Gravity Trading Cards, Games and
Collectibles in the Moreno Valley Mall. After prodding from customers, owner
Jerry Rosby decided to begin hosting the Nintendo “Super Smash Bros. 4”
tournaments in April.
Esports, or electronic
sports, have long had a place in video game culture, with competitions being
held in arcades, homes and some video game stores such as GameStop. But a
recent rise in professional paid players and teams may have esports on the
brink of becoming the next sport to attain major league status.
Hundreds of gamers
participate in Paragon Super Smash Bros. tournament in Florida in January 2015.
This September, the group will be holding a tournament at the Ontario
Convention Center. Esports has been gaining wider acceptance with some
professional gamers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year through
tournaments, sponsorships and subscribers to their online streaming channels.
(Photo by Jacob Praytor/for the Los Angeles Daily News)
Every single
mainstream sport had its breaking out moments,” explained Patrick Creadon,
director of the upcoming gaming documentary, “All Work All Play.” “Somebody
somewhere said, ‘We should make this legit. We should make this a pro-circuit
where people get paid to play their favorite games.’ And lots of people said
‘That’s a terrible idea. Who’s going to pay to watch someone play golf?’ The
numbers don’t lie.”
This week, thousands of
gamers are expected to converge on Comic-Con International in San Diego to test
their skills.
Dozens of game
designers and companies will be present at the huge pop-culture event,
including Nintendo, which again will be taking over an entire room at the San
Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina for casual play and tournaments.
Tournaments will be
held every day of the convention starting Thursday, giving fans the chance to
win a variety of prizes, including amiibo figures, which connect to gaming
devices, T-shirts and more.
Along with being able
to play some newly released games such as “Splatoon,” the Nintendo Gaming
Lounge will feature many unreleased games, including “Super Mario Maker,”
“Yoshi’s Woolly World” and “Skylanders: SuperChargers” from Activision for the
Wii U console.
Zachary Levi’s Nerd HQ
event will also feature a gaming experience.
“The entire top floor
will be dedicated to gaming, and people will be able to play a demo for ‘Star
Wars: Battlefront,’” Levi said. “We’re the only ones offering that.”
As large-scale
tournaments gain popularity in the United States, they have been commonplace in
other countries, including Korea and parts of Europe.
“North America in many
ways is catching up to the rest of the world when it comes to professional
gaming,” said Creadon, whose film follows a group of “League of Legends” teams
as they fight their way to the Electronic Sports League’s largest and most
prestigious tournament, Intel Extreme Masters. “It isn’t unusual to see 15,000
people pack a hockey arena watching esports, but that’s what it’s like in other
places in the world.”
However, the growth has
not gone unnoticed in the United States.
Recently two American
universities, Robert Morris University in Chicago and the University of
Pikeville in Kentucky, have begun offering incoming students gaming
scholarships. RMU recently opened the first varsity esports facility in North
America.
“And I think other
schools will soon follow,” said Creadon.
BIG MONEY AT THE TOP
The top-earning esports
athlete, Chen “Hao” Zhihao, 24, of China raked in more than $1.1 million in a
combination of tournament winnings and endorsements playing “Dota 2,” a
multiplayer online battle arena game developed by Valve Corporation, according
to esportsearnings.com.
“Those games have
larger pools,” explained Alex Chiricosta of Burbank. Chiricosta is helping
bring one of the largest “Super Smash Bros.” tournaments, Paragon, to the
Ontario Convention Center in September. “I think the biggest I’ve seen for
Smash was about $20,000.”
The pool for the
Paragon tournaments are nearly $2,000. Although that may seem like a pittance
compared with some of the other prizes, Chiricosta said some popular and
top-ranked players can make a good amount of money by streaming online.
“It all depends, but
I’ve seen people make $30 in an hour, and I’ve seen others make $3,000 in an
hour,” he said.
Through Twitch, a
website that allows gamers to live stream their gameplay, fans can pay a
monthly amount, sometimes $5, to follow along and play with their favorite esports
athletes.
Top-ranking “Super
Smash Bros. Melee” player, Joseph Marquez of San Jose, who plays under the
handle Mang0, pulled in nearly $20,000 in tournament play alone, according to
esportsearning.com. That does not include the money he earns through streaming
and endorsements.
Marquez recently took
part in the Community Effort Orlando Gaming tournament in Florida, which was
sponsored by various gaming companies as well as Warner Bros. and Microsoft.
OPPORTUNITIES
For some players,
tournaments like those at Zero Gravity at the Moreno Valley Mall are a chance
to find out if they have what it takes to go pro.
“It’s great to be able
to test your skills and see how well you do against players,” said 18-year-old
Nacia Edwards of San Bernardino.
She is a third of a sibling
Smash team made up of her older brother, Malik, 20, and their 14-year-old
brother, Joshua. The Edwards siblings were among more than 30 contenders
gathered on a recent Saturday ready to go head-to-head against other players,
some of whom are ranked competitors in the expanding esports world.
Esports and
professional gaming can also open doors for people in search for a lifelong
career.
“They can get into
other aspects of the industry,” explained Chiricosta. “Like any other sport,
you may not be able to become a professional baseball or basketball player, but
you can be a coach or a trainer.”
Those who have the
skills can be recruited to test, design and develop games for large video game
companies, too.
“Growing up, you may
hear parents say, ‘Are you going to play video games for a living?’ ” Creadon
said. “Now they can say, ‘Yeah.’ ”
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